Olaf Breuning

Olaf Breuning
Chinatown Objects

19 November - 23 December 2005

Currently on view in the second floor gallery at Metro Pictures is Chinatown Objects, an exhibition of new sculptures by Swiss-born, New York-based artist Olaf Breuning. The show includes 21 works made from products bought in New York's Chinatown markets and arranged in playful anthropomorphic configurations. Breuning created the sculptures on site over the course of a week.

"Made in China" is a phrase commonly seen on a wide range of products that European and American consumers buy. Breuning uses an assortment of these objects, including bamboo screens, pocket knives, porcelain dishware, musical instruments, and plastic slippers, to build his carefully arranged sculptures. Breuning's reconstructed ready-mades transform Metro Pictures' upstairs gallery into a landscape of shiny robots, large looming spiders, crawling wooden worms, feather duster birds and Japanese lantern bushes and clouds.

Breuning works in photography, video, sculpture and installation to create bizarre "re-mixes" of familiar myths, stereotypes, and cultural fantasies common to sources of mass media. His work has been exhibited in museums and galleries in the U.S., Europe and Japan, including solo exhibitions at the Swiss Institute in New York, 2001; the Museo de Arte Carrillo Gil, Mexico City, the Musée de Strasbourg, France, and MAGASIN-Centre National d'art Contemporain, Grenoble, 2003; and the New Stedelijk Museum CS, Amsterdam, 2004. Breuning's work has been featured in group shows including Second Sight, Prague Biennale of Contemporary Art, 2005; Burlesques Contemporains, Jeu de Paume, Paris, 2005; and Boys Behaving Badly – Perspectives 142, Contemporary Arts Museum, Houston, 2004.

Gallery Hours: 10 am- 6 pm, Tuesday – Saturday

Press Information: Stacy Bolton Communications T: 212 721 5350 E: Mamie@StacyBolton.com