LINDA LINDROTH: TRICKSTER IN FLATLAND
February 27 — August 12, 2020
Opening reception: Thursday, February 27, 6 – 8 pm
Artisan Lofts Tribeca
143 Reade Street, New York, NY 10013
New York, NY (TRIBECA) Garvey|Simon is pleased to present the latest installation of Linda Lindroth’s series, Trickster in Flatland. The show will feature spatially transformative photographic work examining vivid ephemera produced during the height of domestic manufacturing in the United States. Linda Lindroth began using found objects in her work in 1982. In Trickster in Flatland, simple cardboard containers are stripped of their original identity and enlarged to a vertigo-inducing scale. These monolithic objects are displayed in various stages of decay and defamation, pointing to the capricious nature of popular culture and trend. Much like the images themselves, these prevailing fads are shown to be expansive, but ultimately superficial. The title of the exhibition, Trickster in Flatland, is inspired by the satirical novella, Flatland: A Romance of Many Dimensions, by Edwin Abbott (1884) about a two-dimensional world occupied by geometric figures. Linda Lindroth’s subversion is two-fold: her materials are three-dimensional imposters that then betray their own trickery with illusions of tangibility, and gestures toward volume.
Once sculpted and designed, Lindroth photographs her objects and makes a high-resolution digital file using sophisticated image-making equipment. Manipulated, folded, and flattened, Lindroth’s saturated, jewel-tone planes become playgrounds for visual puns and art historical allusions. The works reveal such tangible texture that they appear as trompe l’oeil collages, pointing to their own fallacy in turn. Lindroth bandies about such mononyms as Loos, Malevich, Kusama, Gillette, and Serra with mirth, evoking Russian Constructivism, Minimalism, Abstract Expression, Cubism, and Pop Art in her wake. Her once small, quotidian objects are transformed into large, abstracted visual icons – carrying with them the weight of their industrial history. Decontextualized and transfigured, Linda calls into question the gravity of their histories. The commercial origins of Linda Lindroth’s subjects work as a call back to TriBeCa’s mercantile and industrial history, making Artisan Lofts an apropos home for her exhibition.
About the Artist
Linda Lindroth is the recipient of numerous grants and prizes including those from the National Endowment for the Arts, The New England Foundation for the Arts, Connecticut Commission on the Arts, Foundation for Contemporary Performance Art, and the Architecture League of New York. Lindroth's work is included in Women Artists on the Leading Edge by Joan Marter (Rutgers University Press 2019) and The Polaroid Project at the Intersection of Art and Technology (University of California Press 2017). She lives and works in New Haven, CT.
Lindroth is included in the collections of numerous museums including the Museum of Modern Art, New York; the Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York; The Museum of the City of New York; Yale University, New Haven, CT; Zimmerli Art Museum, New Brunswick, NJ; High Museum, Atlanta, GA; Princeton University Art Museum, NJ; Bibliothèque Nationale, Paris; WestLicht Schauplatz für Fotografie, Vienna; and the International Polaroid Collection to name a few. She has had over 100 solo and group shows worldwide. This is her second solo show with Garvey|Simon.
Viewings, other than the opening reception, are available by appointment only. To request an appointment or additional materials, please contact Liz Garvey at liz@garveysimon.com or by phone at 917.796.2146.