Artist: Paul Thek
Exhibition title: Relativity Clock
Venue: Alexander and Bonin, New York, US
Date: September 7 – October 16, 2021
Photography: all images copyright and courtesy of the artist and Alexander and Bonin, New York
Alexander and Bonin is pleased to announce an exhibition by Paul Thek opening Tuesday, September 7th. The exhibition includes major works from all periods of the artist’s career, beginning with Untitled (Meat Piece with Chair), 1966, from the iconic series Technological Reliquaries. The exhibition also includes “picture light” paintings and newspaper paintings from the 1980s.
Between 1964 and 1967, Thek had three solo exhibitions of his Technological Reliquaries at Stable Gallery and Pace Gallery in New York. In an interview with Gene Swenson in Art News, (April 1966), he commented: “The dissonance of the two surfaces, glass and wax, pleases me: one is clear and shiny and hard, the other is soft and slimy. I try to harmonize them without relating them, or the other way around. At first, the physical vulnerability of the wax necessitated the cases; now the cases have grown to need the wax. The cases are calm; their precision is like numbers, reasonable.” The reliquaries, along with Thek’s installation The Tomb (1967), brought widespread attention to his work and its relationship to 1960s counterculture.
Following the New York exhibitions, Thek spent much of the next decade in Europe – Rome, Sicily, and the first of many summers on the Italian island of Ponza, where he intermittently lived and worked for over a decade. In 1969 he worked in Amsterdam in a studio provided by the Stedelijk Museum. Here, Thek made Fishman, a latex full-body cast, and several “meat cables”: sculptures composed of steel cable (20–40 feet, 6–12 meters long) onto which he formed chunks of wax “meat.” A pair of “meat cables,” stretched taut between walls, will be included in the exhibition with photographs by Edwin Klein made during the production of A document by Paul Thek and Edwin Klein, originally published by the Stedelijk Museum and the Moderna Museet, Stockholm in conjunction with large scale installations made by Thek and The Artists Co-op.
Relativity Clock is titled after a drawing in one of the approximately one hundred journals and sketchbooks Thek made between 1969–88. These journals are filled with drawings, writings, and transcriptions, providing innumerable representations of his thought process and nonsegregated practice. Relativity Clock will also include Peter Hujar’s photographs of Thek working in his studio in 1967, archival materials, and a library of monographs produced since the artist’s death in 1988. Concurrently The Watermill Center has re-installed and expanded their Paul Thek rooms and is presenting Paul Thek: Interior/Landscape, which includes many works on view publicly for the first time, through September 30th.
Paul Thek, Relativity Clock, 2021, exhibition view, Alexander and Bonin, New York
Paul Thek, Relativity Clock, 2021, exhibition view, Alexander and Bonin, New York
Paul Thek, Relativity Clock, 2021, exhibition view, Alexander and Bonin, New York
Paul Thek, Relativity Clock, 2021, exhibition view, Alexander and Bonin, New York
Paul Thek, Relativity Clock, 2021, exhibition view, Alexander and Bonin, New York
Paul Thek, Relativity Clock, 2021, exhibition view, Alexander and Bonin, New York
Paul Thek, Relativity Clock, 2021, exhibition view, Alexander and Bonin, New York
Paul Thek, Relativity Clock, 2021, exhibition view, Alexander and Bonin, New York
Paul Thek, Untitled (Meat Piece with Chair) (from the series ‘Technological Reliquaries’) 1966 wax, bronze, formica and plexiglass, 16 1/2 x 21 1/2 x 9 1/2 in/ 42 x 55 x 24 cm photo: Joerg Lohse © Estate of George Paul Thek; courtesy Alexander and Bonin, New York
Paul Thek, Untitled (Meat Piece with Chair) (from the series ‘Technological Reliquaries’) 1966 wax, bronze, formica and plexiglass, 16 1/2 x 21 1/2 x 9 1/2 in/ 42 x 55 x 24 cm photo: Joerg Lohse © Estate of George Paul Thek; courtesy Alexander and Bonin, New York
Paul Thek, Untitled (meat cables) 1969, wax on steel cable with loop and turnbuckles 1 3/4 x 1 1/2 x 177 in/4.5 x 4 x 450 cm and 2 1/2 x 2 5/8 x 370 in/6 x 6.5 x 940 cm photo: Joerg Lohse © Estate of George Paul Thek; courtesy Alexander and Bonin, New York
Edwin Klein, Untitled 1969, silver gelatin print, 15 1/4 x 22 3/4 in/39 x 58 cm © Edwin Klein; courtesy Alexander and Bonin, New York
Edwin Klein, Untitled 1969, silver gelatin print, 15 1/4 x 22 3/4 in/39 x 58 cm © Edwin Klein; courtesy Alexander and Bonin, New York
Edwin Klein, Untitled 1969, silver gelatin print, 15 1/4 x 22 3/4 in/39 x 58 cm © Edwin Klein; courtesy Alexander and Bonin, New York
Paul Thek, Untitled (Diver) 1969, acrylic on newspaper, 26 1/8 x 36 1/4 in/66.4 x 92.1 cm photo: Orcutt & Van Der Putten © Estate of George Paul Thek; courtesy Alexander and Bonin, New York
Paul Thek, Pink Cross and Green Buds 1975-1980 oil on canvas board with artist’s frame and picture light, 12 x 16 in/30.5 x 41 cm, photo: Joerg Lohse © Estate of George Paul Thek; courtesy Alexander and Bonin, New York
Paul Thek, MM (Roman 2000) 1980, oil on canvas with artist’s frame and picture light, 26 x 26 in/66 x 66 cm, photo: Joerg Lohse © Estate of George Paul Thek; courtesy Alexander and Bonin, New York
Paul Thek, Untitled 1983, gouache on newsprint, 22 1/2 x 28 1/8 in/57 x 71.5 cm photo: Joerg Lohse © Estate of George Paul Thek; courtesy Alexander and Bonin, New York
Paul Thek, Untitled (Blue Zig-Zags) 1988 acrylic on newspaper 22 x 27 1/2 in/56 x 70 cm, photo: Joerg Lohse © Estate of George Paul Thek; courtesy Alexander and Bonin, New York
Paul Thek, The Eye of the Beholder 1987 acrylic and pencil on paper 18 x 24 in/45.7 x 61 cm photo: Joerg Lohse © Estate of George Paul Thek; courtesy Alexander and Bonin, New York
Paul Thek, Untitled (5/9/70) 1970, pencil on paper, 11 3/4 x 16 in/ 30 x 40.6 cm photo: Joerg Lohse © Estate of George Paul Thek; courtesy Alexander and Bonin, New York
Paul Thek, Untitled (6 studies) ca. 1975 pencil and watercolor on paper 11 1/4 x 15 3/4 in/28.6 x 40 cm photo: Joerg Lohse © Estate of George Paul Thek; courtesy Alexander and Bonin, New York
Paul Thek, Untitled (studio interior) 1975 pencil on paper, 14 1/8 x 19 in/35.5 x 48 cm photo: Joerg Lohse © Estate of George Paul Thek; courtesy Alexander and Bonin, New York
Paul Thek, Untitled (Air Shaft Obelisk) ca. 1986 pencil on paper, 14 x 17 in/35.5 x 43 cm, photo: Joerg Lohse © Estate of George Paul Thek; courtesy Alexander and Bonin, New York
Paul Thek, Untitled (Ark Egg) ca. 1986 ink on paper, 14 x 17 in/35.5 x 43 cm, photo: Bill Orcutt © Estate of George Paul Thek; courtesy Alexander and Bonin, New York
Paul Thek, Untitled (rooftop/water towers) ca. 1987 acrylic and canvas on board, 10 1/4 x 13 1/4 in/26 x 33.5 cm photo: Bill Orcutt © Estate of George Paul Thek; courtesy Alexander and Bonin, New York
Peter Hujar, Hand Sculpture from the Tomb 1967/2010 pigmented ink print sheet: 20 x 16 in/ 51 x 40.6 cm, image: 18 1/2 x 12 1/2 in/ 47 x 32 cm © The Peter Hujar Archive LLC; courtesy Alexander and Bonin, New York
Peter Hujar, Paul Thek with Hand Sculptures 1967/2010 pigmented ink print, sheet: 20 x 16 in/ 51 x 40.6 cm, image: 18 1/2 x 12 1/2 in/ 47 x 32 cm © The Peter Hujar Archive LLC; courtesy Alexander and Bonin, New York
