Michael Dean: "Tolerance"

Opening: Friday, January 15, 6–8 pm

Exhibition Dates: January 15 – March 7, 2010

Scaramouche is pleased to announce “Tolerance,” the first solo exhibition of artist Michael Dean in New York. Borrowing its title from the eponymous play written by Dean for this occasion, the exhibition explores the impenetrable distance/space that exists between object and its trace, between past experiences and how they are re-constructed/re-membered.

Taking the form of posters, drawings, sculptures and performance, Dean’s practice examines the physical properties of language, as well as its politics of authorship and autonomy. Hermetic monuments, texts appropriated from untraceable sources and cryptic typographies are the basic elements of the artist’s obscurely seductive language, a language that deliberately provides no accessible meaning while requesting the viewer to project significance onto the works.

For his exhibition at Scaramouche, Dean will present the aforementioned play Tolerance, which will be handed out to viewers, along with two new sculptures and several metal foils. Made with multiple layers of cement, broken glass and tape, Dean’s sculptures adopt the form of anachronistic monoliths. The metal foils placed around them function as negatives, shaped by rubbing the metal against the sculptures’ surfaces, drawing the viewers attention to the shifting, unfathomable space between remembrance and oblivion. Curated by Alessandro Sarri.

Michael Dean (1977, Brisbane, Australia) is a graduate in Fine Art and Contemporary Critical Theory at Goldsmiths College in London. His work has been exhibited in numerous museums and galleries across Europe, including the Galleria Arte Moderna GAM in Turin, the Leeds City Art Gallery, and La Galerie Center for Contemporary Art in Paris. His work is also included in public and private collections. In 2010, the Henry Moore Institute will publish “The array of rain”, a new play by the artist. Dean lives and works in London.