White Cube is pleased to participate in Frieze London 2019 with a presentation of sculpture and installation by Brazilian artist Jac Leirner and American artist Virginia Overton.
Employing the language of minimalism, and through repurposing, order and repetition of materials, Leirner and Overton explore themes of consumerism and exchange in their work.
Leirner is fascinated by objects and materials that are mostly taken for granted and overlooked, including shopping bags, cigarette papers and rulers. She has a taxonomic approach to her materials, ordering, classifying and arranging them into simple, linear and systematic situations. In Rolling level Nº 2 (2013), Leirner collects packaging for cigarette papers and arranges them on top of a horizontal piece of plywood, calling attention to the aesthetic potential of items both consumed and commonly discarded.
Overton’s works are also made from objects and materials she encounters in her environment, her choices driven by what she has described as the ‘natural push and pull in materials’. Drawing on the vernacular of blue collar and rural America, Overton’s materials might include pick-up trucks, pipes and wooden logs salvaged from the streets. For Untitled (Quartered Dawn Redwood) (2019), Overton has cut a fallen tree trunk lengthwise into quarters and turned each slice inwards, revealing the natural pattern, colour and texture of the tree’s otherwise hidden interior.
The works on view in this presentation play with balance, weight, density, colour and texture, exploring the geometric and poetic potential of a diverse range of materials. While both artists select their objects for their aesthetic qualities, it is equally important that these objects have previously been traded, exchanged and consumed – that they carry a history of use and value.
