Erika Verzutti at Andrew Kreps Gallery

Artist: Erika Verzutti

Exhibition title: Ex Gurus

Venue: Andrew Kreps Gallery, New York, US

Date: March 3 – 31, 2018

Photography: all images copyright and courtesy of the artist and ©Andrew Kreps Gallery

Andrew Kreps Gallery is pleased to present Ex Gurus, an exhibition of new work by Erika Verzutti.

Erika Verzutti’s works explore the ways in which the insular act of creation becomes intertwined with the physical world. Drawing on both the natural and artificial, Verzutti’s sculptures and reliefs evoke equally the familiar forms they represent, as well as the abstract results of material exploration. Incorporating these once fleeting gestures into their final form, the works remain firmly rooted within a studio practice and have an intimate relationship to their own history, demonstrating the continuously evolving relationship between ideation and process.

For her first exhibition with the gallery, Verzutti incorporates her own biography as a material in a series of wall reliefs and floor-based sculptures. Rather than working from life or photographs, each work begins with an abstract concept. These Ex Gurus draw on ideas and belief systems once formative to Verzutti’s own thinking that have since been abandoned. Made apparent by the work’s titles, they range from the cosmological to the mundane; all acting as a framework through which to explore the tension between representation and abstraction, and how one can lead into the other.

The relationship between these two poles also gives way to a complex relationship between painting and sculpture. In wall reliefs such as Homeopatia, 2018, sculptural depressions into the bronze surface become guidelines for the application of colored paints. Alternatively, in works such as Astrology, painting is what transforms the surface’s gridded structure into an image to be deciphered by the viewer. These strategies continue throughout the works in the exhibition and form an inquiry that is similar to synesthesia, or the process in which one form or experience cognitively can become another. Simultaneously physical, conceptual, and formal, Verzutti’s work suggests that the act of creation is in itself a belief system, one with the freedom to endlessly discover new ideas and results.

Erika Verzutti’s (b. 1971, São Paulo) lives and works in São Paulo. Verzutti recently participated in Viva Arte Viva, the international art exhibition at the 57^th Venice Biennale, curated by Christine Macel, 2017 as well as the 32^nd Bienal de São Paulo, São Paulo, 2016. Past solo exhibitions of her work include Swan, Cucumber, Dinosaur, Pivô, São Paulo, 2016, Swan with Stage, Sculpture Center, Queens, 2015, and Mineral, Tang Museum at Skidmore College, 2014, among others. Verzutti’s work is held in the collections of the Centre Pompidou, Paris, Carnegie Museum of Art, Pittsburgh, Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum, New York, Marciano Art Foundation, Los Angeles, Instituto Inhotim, Brazil, and Museu de Arte Moderna de São Paulo, São Paulo, Brazil.

Erika Verzutti, Ex Gurus, 2018, exhibition view, Andrew Kreps Gallery, New York, Photo: Dawn Blackman

Erika Verzutti, Abraham, 2017, Bronze and acrylic, 25 3/16 x 40 3/18 x 2 3/16 in (64 x 102 x 5.5 cm), Photo: Everton Ballardin

Erika Verzutti, Witch, 2018, Bronze, stones, polymer clay, 17 3/4 x 23 1/4 x 3 15/16 in (45 x 59 x 10 cm), Edition 1 of 3, with 2 APs, Photo: Everton Ballardin

Erika Verzutti, Dias da Semana, 2017, Bronze and acrylic, 24 7/16 x 3 15/16 x 3 15/16 in (62 x 10 x 10 cm), Edition AP1 of 3, with 1 AP, Photo: Everton Ballardin

Erika Verzutti, Oblique Strategies, 2016, Papier-mâché and wax, 21 1/16 x 26 x 3 1/2 in (53.5 x 66 x 9 cm), Photo: Everton Ballardin

Erika Verzutti, Floral, 2017, Bronze, oil and acrylic, 20 1/16 x 20 1/16 x 1 3/4 in (51 x 51 x 4.5cm), Photo: Everton Ballardin

Erika Verzutti, Earring with Clouds, 2017, Bronze, oil and acrylic, 24 x 13 x 2 3/8 in (61 x 33 x 6 cm), Photo: Everton Ballardin

Erika Verzutti, Cemetery Inline, 2018, Cobble stones, clay, papier-mâché and acrylic, 11 x 240 3/16 x 6 5/16 in (610 x 28 x 16 cm), Photo: Everton Ballardin

Erika Verzutti, Astrology, 2017, Bronze, oil and acrylic paint, 16 15/16 x 15 3/4 x 2 in (43 x 40 x 5 cm), Edition 1 of 3, with 2 APs, Photo: Everton Ballardin

Erika Verzutti, Pilates, 2018, Bronze, oil and acrylic paint, 48 x 40 3/16 x 4 3/4 in (122 x 102 x 12 cm), Edition 1 of 3, with 2 APs, Photo: Everton Ballardin

Erika Verzutti, Church, 2017, Bronze and oil paint, 21 1/4 x 17 3/4 x 3 15/16 in (54 x 45 x 10 cm), Photo: Everton Ballardin

Erika Verzutti, Homeopatia, 2018, Bronze, oil and acrylic paint, 40 3/16 x 32 11/16 x 2 3/4 in (102 x 83 x 7 cm), Unique edition of 3, Photo: Everton Ballardin

Erika Verzutti, D, 2017, Bronze, oil and acrylic paint, 15 3/8 x 11 x 1 3/4 in (39 x 28 x 4.5 cm), Photo: Everton Ballardin

Erika Verzutti, India, 2017, Bronze and oil paint, 22 13/16 x 16 1/2 x 3 15/16 in (58 x 42 x 10 cm), Edition 1 of 3, with 2 APs, Photo: Everton Ballardin

Erika Verzutti, Feng Shui (Cemetery of paint), 2018, Oil and acrylic on papier-mâché, 34 1/4 x 41 3/8 in (87 x 105 cm), Photo: Everton Ballardin

Erika Verzutti, Flat Grandpa, 2017, Papier-mâché, polistyrene and concrete, 27 3/4 x 38 3/16 x 7 11/16 in (70.5 x 97 x 19.5 cm), Photo: Everton Ballardin