SOUTHFIRST 60 N6th Street  Brooklyn, NY  11211  www.southfirst.org

 

 

 

SOUTHFIRST: PRESENTS

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE

Zak Kitnick: Murphy Beds

January 30 - March 1, 2009

 

SOUTHFIRST is pleased to present "Murphy Beds," an exhibition of new sculptures by Zak Kitnick on view from January 30 – March 1. In pursuit of sculptural simplicity, Kitnick's subtractive methodology modifies aluminum fences, curtain rods, and blinds. The works have been built and unbuilt by assembling industrially made domestic wares.

 

In ÒI Love the Things I Hate When TheyÕre Perfect,Ó black bars plot out an eight-by-eight foot square fence containing its strewn accents—fleur-de-lis finials rendered incapable of embellishing the bars in traditional, heraldic menace. Kitnick's new, blunted form presents a tension in its lack of decorative function. Lofted eight feet high on the gallery's longest wall are two fixtures whose dissected brass curtain rod and finials rest on the ground framing an apparition of an image or a hanging textile. Opposite this void, four Venetian blinds are suspended in a customized soffit, their slats running perpendicular as they are stacked outward from a brick wall. This redundancy and multiplicity obviates the need-based function of the blinds and turns notions of choice and option into an opaque grid. A hundred years after Adolf Loos wrote ÒOrnament and Crime,Ó Kitnick takes the bastardized detritus of form-follows-function industrial design and repurposes found, extraneous decorative elements, turning architectural precepts into sculptural propositions.

 

Zak Kitnick holds a BA from Bard College where he studied Studio Art and Art History. He lives and works in Brooklyn, New York and has been included in the exhibitions "Salad Days" at Artists Space, "Sugar" at Asia Song Society, "Alone/Together" at Talman+Monroe and "O Natural" at 400. His solo show ÒOde to JoyÓ was the inaugural exhibition at CleopatraÕs in Brooklyn, NY in 2008. His work will be included in the upcoming exhibition ÒChanging Light Bulbs in Thin AirÓ at the Hessel Museum of Art.

 

SOUTHFIRST is located on 60 N6th Street in Williamsburg, Brooklyn. Gallery hours are Friday, Saturday and Sunday from 1-6 PM and by appointment. Subway: L train to Bedford Avenue.  For more information, please contact Carolyn Park at 718 599 4884 or info@southfirst.org.