PROJECT SPACE
ON VIEW: JENNIFER WILLIAMS
JANUARY 22 - FEBRUARY 28, 2020
PRESS RELEASE | IMAGES

Robert Mann Gallery is pleased to present Jennifer Williams' unique photo-based constructions and ladders on view in our new project space at 125 East 90th Street. 

Jennifer Williams' unique photo-based constructions, such as Boxes #3 (2014) are particularly sensual, with layers of brown paper, varying in tone, folded and bent and squeezed together while stained by the rain as they lay on the sidewalk. The constructions of utilitarian objects such as blankets, boxes, dishes and rugs that have been thrown to the waste side are created through many layers of images all varying ever so slightly in perspective forming three dimensional objects that emerge from the surface of the paper. These works beg viewers to touch them and glide their fingers across the textures. 

"The meaning of trash would seem to lie in a surreal absurdity, but by taking it seriously, this very quality may come to illuminate the real absurdity of the situation in which it is produced." - excerpt from the chapter Trash "Gargantua: Manufactured Mass Culture" by Julian Stallabrass. 

The artist's life-size, wall-mounted ladder prints are subversive in their utilitarian simplicity. They stretch over walls, around corners and onto ceilings, performing trompe l'oeil tricks or abstracting through geometric gymnastics. Individual ladders also take on distinct personalities—some battered, dinged, and colorful; some sleek, slim, and stainless-steel. Tottering or firmly planted, short or tall, old or new: each is undeniable in its unexpected charisma.

Jennifer Williams received her MFA from Goldsmiths College in London and her BFA from Cooper Union in New York, where she currently teaches. Her work has been widely exhibited throughout the country, and honors include the A.I.R. Gallery Fellowship and the NARS Foundation International Artist Residency, as well as the 2008 Juror's Grand Prize at the 4th Annual Alternative Processes show. Her work has been featured in publications like The New Yorker, Excerpt Magazine, Title Magazine, Photography Quarterly, and the Pittsburgh Post Gazette. She lives and works in New York City.