Mike Ballou has brought to the gallery two large-scale sculptures, with which he touches the themes of authorship, art perception, and the role of the artist as entertainer. In the first room, the artist confronts the viewer with a puppet stage, in which an audience made up of small marionette-like puppets, likened after his group of friends, is waiting in front of an ephemeral seascape for a show that is perpetually starting. In the second room, Ballou's masked, giant uncanny hand-puppet reminds us of our many dependencies, as well as of the artist's creative dilemma.
Jeffrey Wisniewski's drawings and videos are documents of several projects realized by the artist over the last few years. Often taking a specific urban or suburban building characteristic of its geographic environment, the artist will transfer the remains into a public installation that requires the viewer to interact with the mutability of building structures. In "Untitled/House Project" for example, Wisniewski fed a colonial wooden house, that was slated for demolition to make way for the construction of a highway, through a wood chipper and exhibited the debris in a gallery. In a recent installation, "Solar Implode Powerhouse," Wisniewski has created an outdoor sculpture in which an intricate solar powered motor slowly destructs a trailer home.
For more information about available works, please contact inquiries@davidzwirner.com