Zach Feuer Gallery
530 W. 24th Street
New York, NY 10011
Tel: +1 212 989 7700
info@zachfeuer.com
Exhibition dates: May 8-June 7, 2008
Opening reception: May 8, 6-8 pm
Stuart Hawkins
"Deluxe"
Zach Feuer Gallery is pleased to present new photographs, video and sculpture by Stuart Hawkins. This is her third solo show with the gallery.
In "Deluxe", Hawkins collaborates with local artisans in Kolkata, India to build handcrafted props modeled after luxury items found in elite vacation resorts.
Constructed to be oversized, with distorted proportions, and placed in sparse environs, Hawkins enacts impromptu public performances with her props that reference a global divide of waste and wealth. Upon photographing the live scenarios, the raw materials from the resort sets are then dissembled and recycled back into the host communities as carpets, tables, tents, or insulation. The realm of the elite is re-contextualized, resituated, and rebuilt with the hands of many.
In her video piece “The Naturalist”, a resort staff member performs animal sounds and bird calls during ‘Happy Hour’. He entertains a vacation audience that seeks to enjoy the authentic sounds of nature, while distracting them from the reality that many of these sounds can no longer be heard.
Hawkins’ sculpture “Bottled Water” sits in repose drinking water, as the action in Hawkins photographs and video installation unfurl; a vacationer replenishing as the world turns.
Stuart Hawkins was born in 1969 in Norfolk, VA, and lives and works in New York, NY and Nepal. Hawkins has exhibited at the Schirn Kunsthalle Frankfurt, Germany, Frye Art Museum, Seattle, Peres Projects, Los Angeles, Brooklyn Academy of Music, New York, and Artists Space, New York.
