BE THERE
SpiritsPresented by Sara Meltzer Gallery January 11, 2008- February 9, 2008Reception: January 11, 6:00 pm - 8:00 pmEdgar OrlainetaThis is Orlaineta's first solo exhibition at the gallery. Inspired by modernist design and architecture, Orlaineta transforms found materials into skeletons of modernist ideas; combining functional and organic forms to represent collapsed utopias. Reminiscent of junkyards in Mexico City that are overgrown by plants, Jardin Moderno (Modern Garden) consists of an arrangement of accumulated chair-parts that have been cleaned, sanded, painted and/or chromed. Seats of Bertoia chairs, Butterfly chair frames and Thonet forms, all icons of modernist design and the innovation of new technologies, are paired with plants that formally echo the configuration of the chairs. Orlaineta's Africa sculptures address the ways in which artists such as Picasso, Modigliani and Brancusi borrowed African forms of sculpture yet failed to recognize their meaning, symbolism and purpose. Orlaineta has positioned objects of carved and poly-chromed walnut wood onto bases that are modeled after Eames designs, added "decorative" elements and placed books about African sculpture on their surfaces. In scale and appearance they resemble furniture yet have been rendered non-functional. Accompanying the sculptures is a series of photographic notations that document the artist's research in the library and his personal investigation into the formal and conceptual strategies of Modern Art. Also included in the exhibition are blown-glass terrariums that the artist refers to as "architecture for plants." In dome-like structures that house gardens of water succulents, the evolution of plants is treated as analogous to human progress, reversing Darwin's theories on social evolution as akin to natural evolution. A collage of images recall past (1950's) images of the future, dated by modern standards. Orlaineta's retro-futuristic forms seem to suggest that the future was once easier to imagine and that we were once less fearful of the future we envisioned.
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