Artist: David Muenzer
Exhibition title: Essai
Venue: Lord Ludd, Philadelphia, US
Date: September 23 – October 30, 2016
Photography: all images copyright and courtesy of the artist and Lord Ludd, Philadelphia
Lord Ludd is pleased to pr esent Essai, David Muenzer’s first solo presentation in Philadelphia.
Muenzer has created Sconces with inscriptions, installed throughout the space. An RSVP list now punctuates each window view, and a tarp, heavy with highlighter juice, obscures the skylight. A blue procession of fingerprints, his and ours, cuts a line across the room.
The name optics refers to the science of lenses—how devices let you see. With a simple change of preposition, however, optics designates how a thing appears to others. This paranoid grammar presupposes the presence of lookers. The crystalline optics on “A More Perfect Union,” Barack Obama’s 2008 speech distancing himself from his longtime pastor, clearly affected the outcome of his candidacy. Although internal relations are essential to the cohesion of a traditional essay, when it comes to political talk, the meaning of words dissolve at their edges. The inner contours of an argument blur while a rhetorical silhouette is immediately identifiable. Another type of essai comes to mind: the pattern coin, a test from which other currency may be struck.
David Muenzer (b. 1987, Pittsburgh) lives and works in Los Angeles. Recent exhibitions include Scalar-Daemon at Res erve Ames and neverhitsend at 356 Mission Road in Los Angeles. In 2011, he organized 14 & 15, an experimental exhibition on two floors of the Lipstick Building in New York City. He received his BA from Yale University in 2009 and his MFA from the University of Southern California in 2014.
David Muenzer, Sconce (A Letter to Our Daughter), 2016
Porous nylon, lighting hardware, 5.975 x 9.079 inches (15.2 x 26 cm)
David Muenzer, Untitled, 2016
Highlighter juice, nylon, chain, hardware, dimensions variable
David Muenzer, Untitled, 2016
Highlighter juice, nylon, chain, hardware, dimensions variable
David Muenzer, Untitled, 2016
Highlighter juice, nylon, chain, hardware, dimensions variable
David Muenzer, Untitled, 2016
Highlighter juice, nylon, chain, hardware, dimensions variable
David Muenzer, Untitled, 2016
Highlighter juice, nylon, chain, hardware, dimensions variable
David Muenzer, Untitled, 2016
Highlighter juice, nylon, chain, hardware, dimensions variable
David Muenzer, Sconce (Snowden Selfie, Aluminum), 2015
Porous nylon, aluminum, 4.093 x 8.974 inches (10.4 x 22.8 cm)
David Muenzer, Sconce (Snowden Selfie, Aluminum), 2015
Porous nylon, aluminum, 4.093 x 8.974 inches (10.4 x 22.8 cm)
David Muenzer, Sconce (Shared Screen, Scaled), 2016
Porous nylon, lighting hardware, 13.046 x 19.693 inches (33.1 x 50 cm)
David Muenzer, Plaza Accord: Mar 7, 2013-2016
Vinyl, 32.5 x 45.25 inches each (82.5 x 115 cm)
David Muenzer, Plaza Accord: Mar 7, 2013-2016
Vinyl, 32.5 x 45.25 inches each (82.5 x 115 cm)
David Muenzer, Plaza Accord: Mar 7, 2013-2016
Vinyl, 32.5 x 45.25 inches each (82.5 x 115 cm)
David Muenzer, Plaza Accord: Mar 7, 2013-2016
Vinyl, 32.5 x 45.25 inches each (82.5 x 115 cm)
David Muenzer, Plaza Accord: Mar 7, 2013-2016
Vinyl, 32.5 x 45.25 inches each (82.5 x 115 cm)
David Muenzer, Plaza Accord: Mar 7, 2013-2016
Vinyl, 32.5 x 45.25 inches each (82.5 x 115 cm)
David Muenzer, Essai, 2016
Chalk, gallerists and artist’s fingerprints, dimensions variable
David Muenzer, Sconce (Contrast – Biege), 2014
Cotton, 6.5 x 9.1 inches (16.5 x 23.1 cm)
David Muenzer, Sconce (This is Water, Black), 2016
Porous Nylon, 4.938 x 8.028 inches (12.5 x 20.4 cm)
David Muenzer, Sconce (A More Perfect Union), 2016
Porous nylon, lighting hardware, 6.456 x 8.834 inches (16.4 x 22.4 cm)
David Muenzer, Sconce (The Human Condition), 2016
Porous nylon, lighting hardware, 4.093 x 8.974 inches (10.4 x 22.8 cm)
David Muenzer, Sconce (Snowden Selfie), 2013
Porous nylon, lighting hardware, 4.093 x 8.974 inches (10.4 x 22.8 cm)
David Muenzer, Untitled, 2016
Highlighter juice, nylon, chain, hardware, dimensions variable
David Muenzer, Untitled, 2016
Highlighter juice, nylon, chain, hardware, dimensions variable
David Muenzer, Sconce (This is Water), 2016
Sandstone, lighting hardware, 4.938 x 8.028 inches (12.5 x 20.4 cm)
David Muenzer, Sconce (Common App), 2016
Sandstone, lighting hardware, 7.281 x 11.039 inches (18.5 x 28 cm)