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Landon Metz, Untitled (2017), dye on canvas, 180 x 144 cm (each), courtesy of the artist and von Bartha
Exhibition
Landon Metz - Fourth Wall
28 Dec 2017 – 24 Feb 2018
Event times
By appointment only
Cost of entry
Free
Address
- Somvlh 46
- S-chanf
Grisons - CH-7525
- Switzerland
Von Bartha, S-chanf announces an exhibition of new large-scale paintings by New York-based artist Landon Metz, running 28 December 2017 – 24 February 2018.
About
Landon Metz’s practice revolves around the activity of painting, yet also incorporates the vocabulary of sculpture, installation and performance. By spreading thin washes of dye on raw canvas, the artist achieves varying degrees of coloristic saturations. Moreover, through repetition of the same compositional arrangements - often in a sequence and extending beyond the limits of the canvas – Metz’s visually dynamic work evokes a sense of movement across the gallery space.
Though his paintings are the result of a predetermined process, each is unique in appearance, owing to the fact that the unprimed canvas reveals its natural properties and allows for chance interactions to occur during creation. As a result, both the use of seriality and technique allow Metz to shift the spectator’s focus from any specific gesture, towards an overall experience of form, colour and hue – time, rhythm and space. Landon Metz’s paintings question what the spectator may discover and discern through first-hand experience. The artist states:
“I’m using what Duchamp would describe as ‘retinal art’ as a tool, a framework for a sort of performance that has less to do with my paintings than the viewers’ responses to them.”
The works at von Bartha test the ‘fourth wall’ – a concept only perceptible once broken. Through paintings which transcend the canvas boundaries, Metz draws attention to the works’ own fictitious construction. Compelling the viewer to reassess the importance of context – through testing the parameters of medium, delivery and reception – this break with convention results in a two-way dialogue between the artist and audience.
Landon Metz was born in Phoenix, USA in 1985 and lives and works in Brooklyn, New York. He has appeared in solo exhibitions in the USA, Canada, Norway, Denmark and Italy. In 2014, Metz was the artist in residence at the ADN Collection in Bolzano, Italy. Upcoming solo exhibitions include Museo Pietro Canonica, Rome (2018) and at Sean Kelly, New York (2019).
For additional information please contact von Bartha via email at info@vonbartha.com
