Kayne Griffin Corcoran is pleased to present Jon Boat, an exhibition by Charles Harlan. This will be Harlan’s first solo exhibition in Los Angeles and with the gallery.
For this exhibition, the artist will present a new body of sculptures in a site-specific installation incorporating the gallery's courtyard as well as the South Gallery.
The eponymous sculpture in the exhibition is installed outside of the gallery’s front doors, and consists of a jon boat standing perpendicularly like a tombstone. It is inlaid with a single piece of hardwood, which is pierced by two holes that interact with the daylight like abstract sun dials on the lawn.
Inside the gallery is a large reflecting pool installed on the floor that acts as a stage for two additional sculptures. The water reflects refracted images of the pieces--exhibited on pedestals just above the waterline. One work is a small boat filled with stone and the other is a pillar made of stone and steel. The final sculpture in the exhibition is a diving board with a stack of firewood that strikes an uncanny balance between utility and leisure. Like fishing.
Harlan incorporates found or industrial materials such as stones, bricks, wire fencing, or in this case simple boats and diving boards. The work is rooted in associations of ancient culture and mythology. Recent sculptures use oyster shells as a catalyst to unthread the narrative of civilization or a roll gate to revisit the story of the Ishtar Gate, the eighth passage to the city of Babylon.
Charles Harlan was born in Smyrna, GA in 1984. He lives and works in New York. Select solo exhibitions include JTT, New York; Rudolph Janssen, Brussels; Carl Kostyál, London; Karma, New York; Pioneer Works, Brooklyn; Venus Over Manhattan, New York; and Cleopatra’s, Brooklyn. Select group exhibitions include Marlborough Gallery, New York; Atlanta Contemporary Art Center, Atlanta; White Flag Projects, St Louis; Sikkema Jenkins & Co, New York; M Woods, Beijing; and Maccarone, New York.
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