Peter Peri
Peter Peri
8 Jan – 20 Feb 2010
Bortolami

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Peter Peri, Peter Peri, Installation view, Bortolami, New York, NY, 2010

Peri’s paintings are skewed mappings of an unknown atmosphere where spheres and bolts or paths of light somehow reflect through the surface of the black or silver paint and collide on multiple planes creating a geometric fragility. The contradiction between how things are explained and how they are seen continually holds Peri’s attention. In looking at his paintings, our eyes search for a point of understanding, a horizon line or perspective that grounds and compounds their unstable cartographic atmosphere.

The three sculptures in the show are engineered replicas in steel of precariously balanced assemblages, originally composed using objects from Peri's home such as rolls of masking tape, cassette boxes, chess sets, calculators. The rolls of tape represent heads and breasts in the sculpture and also function as stencils in both the drawings and the paintings. One of Peri’s favorite quotations is from Tristan Tzara's 1918 Dada Manifesto "The new painter creates a world whose elements are also its means."

Works

Installation view of displayed artwork titled Seated Man 2

Seated Man 2, 2009

Installation view of displayed artwork titled Seated Man 1

Seated Man 1, 2009

Installation view of displayed artwork titled 2 Lakeside Figures

2 Lakeside Figures, 2009

Installation view of displayed artwork titled Head

Head, 2009

Installation view of displayed artwork titled Vision Remembered Forever

Vision Remembered Forever, 2009

Installation view of displayed artwork titled Odalisque

Odalisque, 2009

Installation view of displayed artwork titled Fausses-Reposes

Fausses-Reposes, 2009

Installation view of displayed artwork titled Knot Woman (Reclining)

Knot Woman (Reclining), 2009

Installation view of displayed artwork titled Heliomachy

Heliomachy, 2009

Press

Alex Gartenfield Peter Peri Art in America May 2010