Andy Hope 1930

For his season opening exhibition at Metro Pictures, the Berlin-based artist Andy Hope 1930 (Andreas Hofer) presents ON TIME, an exhibition of painting and three-dimensional forms that channel the evidence of art as a ghostly manifestation in a paranormal time and space.

Central to the exhibition are the "Time Tubes" that are seen as minimal sculptures, two boxes that support a tapered horizontal box with one open end. A picture frame is mounted on one end of the tube, suggesting that this is where one looks through the frame into infinite blackness. The experience of both seeing what is physically present yet encountering unidentifiable space, like an extension of Malevich's black squares, inverts Renaissance perspective so the perspective is a concrete object and the flat picture plane is virtually though not perceptually empty.

The first works encountered, but barely, in the show are "Phantoms," the circular footprint evidence of sculpture once present, is referring to the artist's 2008 Phantom Gallery exhibitions in Los Angeles and Zürich. Based directly on imagery from these shows are the artist's austere and beautifully surfaced paintings in subtly different shaped white frames, where empty rooms resonated with the visible evidence of vanished paintings and objects on the walls and floors. Painted in creams and beiges these paintings reflect the ghostly walls of the installations. Two of the paintings are in shades of gray in response to black and white photographs in the Phantom Gallery catalogue*, investing the suggested source objects with yet another layer of removal from their original existence as actual paintings as part of real life.

The third room presents Nova Nomad, a three-dimensional work that includes a painting and foreshortened stairs encircled by a picture frame, and a Star Trek multi-level chessboard. Hope is exploring in these ghostly and mystical representations his more romantic relationship to art and it's mysterious powers, while continuing to draw upon science fiction, comic book heroes, and other cultural clutter.

Andy Hope 1930 lives and works in Berlin. Recent solo exhibitions include the Charles Riva Collection, Brussels; The Freud Museum, London; and Sammlung Goetz, Munich. His work has recently been included in exhibitions at the Hamburger Bahnhof, Berlin; Kunstforum Ostdeutsche Galerie, Regensburg; Kunstverein Braunschweig, Germany; and the ZKM Center for Art and Media, Karlsruhe.

Gallery hours: Tuesday—Saturday, 10-6 pm.
Please direct press inquiries to James Woodward at James@metropictures.com or 212 206 7100.
*(Steidl/Hauser & Wirth, 2009)