Guillaume Leblon. There is a Man / Marianna Uutinen. Free

About

Leblon’s sculptural installations adopt a poetic relationship to space — embracing an active, mobile, open relationship with the world. Known for choreographing compelling spatial narratives, Leblon’s current exhibition exudes a potent sense of ephemerality and the uncanny.

A tension between absence and form pervades the exhibition. Upon entering the space, visitors will confront a foam carpet that covers the entire floor and the lower part of the wall. The delicate skin sheathing the space will accumulate traces of wear from the visitors’ movement over the course of the exhibition: a visible imprint of the absent human form. This interplay between absence and the body is a key motif that carries throughout the artist’s most recent work.

Over the years, Marianna Uutinen has developed a signature technique that fuses thick layers of acrylic paint to create a skin-like structure that she drapes across the surface of a traditional canvas. While her previous work was distinguished by sweeping folds, a bold palette, and an opulent aesthetic, the paintings in the current exhibition strike a quieter, more contemplative tone. Throughout her practice, Uutinen’s restless experimentation underscores how painting can be a vehicle for new thinking and breaking with old habits. The new works explore how the medium of painting can convey that which is invisible and immaterial. Shimmering and translucent, these dramatically reduced compositions are the most recent examples of the ethereal visual language that the artist has been developing over the course of a year. A vital instability prevails in Uutinen’s new works. The pearlescent hues of each canvas vary dramatically depending on where one stands in relation to them.