Matthew Day Jackson
Terranaut
September 12 – November 8, 2008
at Peter Blum Chelsea
Peter
Blum is pleased to announce the exhibition Matthew
Day Jackson Terranaut: Sculptures and
Paintings, opening on September 12th, 2008 at Peter Blum
Chelsea, 526 West 29th Street. This will be Jackson’s first
one-person exhibition with Peter Blum Gallery and his third solo show in New
York. In 2007 Matthew Day Jackson was part of a two-person show (with Huma
Bhabha) featuring sculptures and new print editions at Peter Blum Soho.
In Terranaut Matthew Day Jackson investigates the fundamental themes
of death, belief, and transcendence in order to illuminate a sense of lived
purgatory. The majority of the works in this show address death in several
manifestations from recreations of Francisco de Goya’s The Disasters of War
to references to the mass suicide in Jonestown,
Guyana. Coupled with these representations of death is Jackson’s emphasis on
the importance of creativity as a life force and his continued interest in the
concept of the American dream (for example over-size reproductions of paintings
by Albert Bierstadt). Jackson sees something
redemptive in the relationship between death and creativity, since much of the
work alludes to the possibility of transcendence in both material and spiritual
forms. His use of salvaged and recycled materials
holds explicit communicative values. For Jackson, materials, ideas, and
individuals can regenerate into new configurations, which in his aesthetic and
philosophical constellation is an affirmation of the creative process. Jackson
also believes that in order to develop into the next stages of personal growth
one must always shed one's own skin—a literal and metaphoric molting essential
for survival. For example, Terranaut (Apollo Space Suit), an astronaut's
suit made of felt and suspended from a pole, underlines this idea
that every explorer must leave something essential behind if he or she wish to
access a new level of consciousness. With Terranaut Jackson has devised
an environment where heterogeneous elements interact in order to create a
meditation on existence and the redemptive aspects of individual and collective
creativity.
Matthew Day Jackson was born 1974
in Panorama City, CA and currently lives and works in Brooklyn, NY. Jackson
completed his M.F.A at Mason Gross School of Arts, Rutgers University. National
and international solo exhibitions include shows at Mario Diacono, Boston, MA
(2007); the Blanton Museum of Art, Austin, TX (2007); the Cubitt Artists Space,
London, England (2006); the Portland Institute of Contemporary Art, Portland,
OR (2006). In addition, Jackson’s work was exhibited in group shows at the
Henry Art Gallery, Seattle, WA (2008); the Contemporary Arts Museum Houston, TX
(2008); the Whitney Biennial, NY (2006) and Greater New York, PS1 Contemporary
Art Center, NY (2005).
Terranaut was created by Jackson in
conjunction with the exhibition Drawings from Tlön, on view at Nicole
Klagsbrun Gallery, 526 West 26th Street, No. 213.