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Nature’s Way

Opening reception: Friday December 15, 2017, 6-9pm

COOPER COLE is pleased to present Nature’s Way, an exhibition curated by Lee Plested.

It’s nature’s way of telling you, something’s wrong.
It’s nature’s way of telling you, in a song.
It’s nature’s way of deceiving you, its nature’s way of retrieving you.
It’s nature’s way of telling you, something’s wrong.

-Randy California, Spirit, 1970

Titled after the song by Randy California and Spirit for their album The Dreams of Dr Sardonicus, Nature’s Way’s circular structure and melancholic tone resonates with feelings of alienation and the urgent desire to reconnect to nature. This song is especially resonant during this time of destabilized weather patterns and our collective recognition of globalized industry and exponential capital’s impact. The artworks in the exhibition are culled from the individual artists experiences negotiating the strictures of contemporary life, often by embodying the delirious potential of the natural sublime. These desiring machines machinate the psychological dimension of their contemporary urban experiences through their making. In this way, the works are tools of agency in a period of anxious upheaval.

Written on the back of Spirits first real hit, 1984, the album The Dreams of Dr Sardonicus marked a deeper engagement for Randy California and the band with the emerging social and environmental crisis. Essentially distopic, the title of the album refers to a film in which the audience is witness to the delirious deviancy of the protagonist, Dr. Sardonicus, and then given the ‘opportunity’ at the end to vote for or against his annihilation. This pantomime of democratic process reverberates in our current climate, a time when many feel helpless in facing the mores and obscured intentions of the elected leaders, a moment that has begun to shake and fragment our belief in the possibility for moral ethic beyond avarice.

Nature’s Way is a ballad of despair and a call for reckoning. These artists explore a similar fatalism, trapped between human instinct and the constrictive actuality of contemporary life. Sometimes utopian, sometimes clinical, sometimes unconsciously, the artists turn to the expressive potential of art’s formal vocabularies. Brought together, the exhibition will realize a Brechtian landscape of allegorical experiences; not a road map for the future, but a poetic pantomime for dancing on the edge of a possible natural retrieval.

 

For more information please contact the gallery:

info@coopercolegallery.com
+1.416.531.800

Artworks

Artworks

B. Wurtz

Thirteen Green Yogurts

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Thirteen Green Yogurts, 1995

Green crayon on paper

24" X 18"
60.96cm X 45.72cm

B. Wurtz

Ten Blue Yogurts

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Ten Blue Yogurts, 1995

Blue crayon on paper

24" X 18"
60.96cm X 45.72cm

B. Wurtz

Ten Scarlet Yogurts

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Ten Scarlet Yogurts, 1995

Scarlet crayon on paper

24" X 18"
60.96cm X 45.72cm

B. Wurtz

Sixteen Scarlet Yogurts

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Sixteen Scarlet Yogurts, 1995

Scarlet crayon on paper

24" X 18"
60.96cm X 45.72cm

B. Wurtz

Nine Orange Yogurts

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Nine Orange Yogurts, 1995

Orange crayon on paper

24" X 18"
60.96cm X 45.72cm

B. Wurtz

Fourteen Orange Yogurts

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Fourteen Orange Yogurts, 1995

Yellow crayon on paper

24" X 18"
60.96cm X 45.72cm

B. Wurtz

Four Blue Yogurts

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Four Blue Yogurts, 1995

Blue crayon on paper

24" X 18"
60.96cm X 45.72cm

B. Wurtz

Five Violet Yogurts

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Five Violet Yogurts, 1995

Violet crayon on paper

24" X 18"
60.96cm X 45.72cm

B. Wurtz

Fifteen Scarlet Yogurts

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Fifteen Scarlet Yogurts, 1995

Scarlet crayon on paper

24" X 18"
60.96cm X 45.72cm

B. Wurtz

Eleven Green Yogurts

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Eleven Green Yogurts, 1995

Green crayon on paper

24" X 18"
60.96cm X 45.72cm

B. Wurtz

Eight Purple Yogurts

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Eight Purple Yogurts, 1995

Purple crayon on paper

24" X 18"
60.96cm X 45.72cm

B. Wurtz

Umbrella Handle

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Umbrella Handle, 1996

Wooden dowel, rope, plastic bag, nail

74" X 36"
187.96cm X 91.44cm

Scott Treleaven

Untitled (Mercury, in profile)

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Untitled (Mercury, in profile), 2017

C-print from 35mm double-exposure

Edition of 3, 2 AP

34" X 25"
86.36cm X 63.5cm

Scott Treleaven

Untitled

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Untitled, 2017

Inkjet

Edition of 1, 1 AP

Diptych, 21.75 x 14.25 in each

Bernard Pfitzner

21 collages

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21 collages, 2015-2017

Edition of 3, 2 AP

Dimensions variable

G.B. Jones and Paul P.

Untitled

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Untitled, 2002

Collage on paper

P.P0009

8.5" X 5.5"
21.59cm X 13.97cm

G.B. Jones and Paul P.

Untitled

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Untitled, 2002

Collage on paper

P.P0008

8.5" X 11"
21.59cm X 27.94cm

G.B. Jones and Paul P.

Untitled

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Untitled, 2002

Collage on paper

P.P0007

11" X 8.5"
27.94cm X 21.59cm

G.B. Jones and Paul P.

Untitled

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Untitled, 2002

Collage on paper

P.P0006

8.5" X 11"
21.59cm X 27.94cm

G.B. Jones and Paul P.

Untitled

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Untitled, 2002

Collage on paper

P.P0005

11" X 8.5"
27.94cm X 21.59cm

Judith Linhares

Waiting for Horseman

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Waiting for Horseman, 2017

Gouache on paper

34" X 50"
86.36cm X 127cm

Gailan Ngan

Rainbow with Pink Meltdown

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Rainbow with Pink Meltdown, 2017

Clay, slip, glazes

16" X 18" X 9"
40.64cm X 45.72cm X 22.86cm

Tiziana La Melia

Sitting on her hair

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Sitting on her hair, 2015

Flashe, ink, panel, staging with Lee: weeds, plastic, poem, apples, incense

80" X 30"
203.2cm X 76.2cm

Tiziana La Melia

Aquarium Club Console (Roots)

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Aquarium Club Console (Roots), 2015

Steel, glass, orange crush can, keys, bait, water bottle, hand cuffs

20" X 53" X 48"
50.8cm X 134.62cm X 121.92cm

Glenn Lewis

Mud Flats Storm Bay

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Mud Flats Storm Bay, 2017

Lighjet print and teabowl, woodfired stoneware

18.8 x 14.3 in and 4.5 x 7 in

Glenn Lewis

Burial Tree at Storm Bay

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Burial Tree at Storm Bay, 2017

Lighjet print and lidded jar, bird knob, woodfired stoneware

12.8 x 18.8 in and 4.7 x 7 in

Glenn Lewis

Looking North Storm Bay

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Looking North Storm Bay

Lighjet print and platter, woodfired stoneware

25 x 16.2 in and 8 x 23.2 in

Nile Koetting

Prospective Cyclones 2018

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Prospective Cyclones 2018 - 2020, 2017

Print on swimsuits, emergency whistle, metal

24.8" X 23.6" X 3.9"
62.99cm X 59.94cm X 9.91cm

Matthew Higgs

Rockburne

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Rockburne, 2017

Book pages, two frames

20 x 17.5 inches and 20 x 18.5 inches

Matthew Higgs

Reading Painting #__ (Peter Schjeldahl)

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Reading Painting #__ (Peter Schjeldahl), 2014

Acrylic on canvas, publication, wire, staples

22.5" X 41.5" X 1.7"
57.15cm X 105.41cm X 4.32cm

Elias Hansen

Let’s turn around and walk home

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Let's turn around and walk home, 2016

Glass, cork, CFL lighbulb

Dimensions variable

Elias Hansen

I ain’t even know where I got it

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I ain't even know where I got it, 2013

Found object, glass, steel, wood

36" X 16" X 24"
91.44cm X 40.64cm X 60.96cm

Tue Greenfort

Horseshoe Crab #05

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Horseshoe Crab #05, 2017

Concrete

Edition of 30

6.3" X 12.7" X 27.8"
16cm X 32.26cm X 70.61cm

Tue Greenfort

Horseshoe Crab #04

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Horseshoe Crab #04, 2017

Concrete

Edition of 30

6.3" X 12.7" X 27.8"
16cm X 32.26cm X 70.61cm

Tue Greenfort

Horseshoe Crab, Companion Species YOUTUBE Series, I

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Horseshoe Crab, Companion Species YOUTUBE Series, I, 2013-2017

Video

Edition of 3 + 2 AP

12:24 min

COBRA

THE FUTURE IS WILD

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THE FUTURE IS WILD - weather news, 2014

MP4 video

Edition of 5 + 1 AP

11m15, HD H264

COBRA

The Object

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The Object - Glorious -, 2014

Acrylic-photo mounting, silver-print, clock

Edition of 3 + 1 AP

11" X 11" X 2.3"
27.94cm X 27.94cm X 5.84cm

Dawn Cerny

Entry Way, Manhattan

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Entry Way, Manhattan, 2016

Plaster tape, foamcore, paint, archival inkjet

23" X 10" X 24"
58.42cm X 25.4cm X 60.96cm

Dawn Cerny

Guest Bedroom, Pacific Palisades

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Guest Bedroom, Pacific Palisades, 2016

Plaster tape, foamcore, paint, archival inkjet

29" X 20" X 7"
73.66cm X 50.8cm X 17.78cm

Colleen Brown

Pocket packet

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Pocket packet, 2016

Mixed Media

2" X 17" X 10"
5.08cm X 43.18cm X 25.4cm

Derya Akay

T-Shirt and pants w/ plaster flower painting

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T-Shirt and pants w/ plaster flower painting, 2017

Cotton, vegetable dye, plaster, wood frame, flowers

Dimensions variable

Elias Hansen

Sitting close to the ground, looking for the sea.

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Sitting close to the ground, looking for the sea., 2016

Found objects, glass, light bulbs, wire

67" X 53" X 15"
170.18cm X 134.62cm X 38.1cm