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Luther Price

The Dry Remains

Opening: Thursday, September 17, 6–8pm

September 17 – October 31, 2015

A photograph of the exterior of the gallery, which hosts a bronze figurative sculpture on a chair in the front window space. There is also the title of the exhibition in black letters on a white wall.

Installation view, Luther Price: The Dry Remains, Callicoon Fine Arts, New York, NY, 2015

A photograph of the interior of the gallery. There is a video on the back wall with blue abstract patterns. In the middle of the room is a bronze figurative sculpture. Throughout the room we see 3 other large flat works installed on the wall and spot-lit.

Installation view, Luther Price: The Dry Remains, Callicoon Fine Arts, New York, NY, 2015

A photograph of the gallery with a bronze figural sculpture in the foreground; 3 flat works installed on the wall with spotlights, and a video on the back wall near the corner with a blue abstract image.

Installation view, Luther Price: The Dry Remains, Callicoon Fine Arts, New York, NY, 2015

A photograph of the interior of the gallery with a side profile of the bronze sculpture in the foreground. On the wall behind the sculpture are 2 wall works at the right. To the left is a small monitor on a pedestal with an illegible video upon it. To the left of that on the wall are 3 small illegible works (appear to be in black and white)

Installation view, Luther Price: The Dry Remains, Callicoon Fine Arts, New York, NY, 2015

A photograph of the back half of the gallery: we are standing behind the bronze figural sculpture in the middle of the room and there are 2 videos being screened on the 2 walls at right of the gallery's entrance. The video on the left has white and blue imagery upon it; the video to the right has red and brown images upon it.

Installation view, Luther Price: The Dry Remains, Callicoon Fine Arts, New York, NY, 2015

A photograph of the back office of the gallery. There is a small table with 2 chairs beneath a flat artwork installed on the wall. The opposite wall is painted black and hosts 20 stills from Price's films.

Installation view, Luther Price: The Dry Remains, Callicoon Fine Arts, New York, NY, 2015

A photograph of an illuminated vitrine that includes film slides and 2 small film-reels on a reader. There are 3 metal boxes stacked on top of one another at the right of the table. Above the table are 3 tessellated square artworks with film negatives.

Installation view, Luther Price: The Dry Remains, Callicoon Fine Arts, New York, NY, 2015

A photograph of the basement of the gallery with a film being projected upon the left wall. At right is a bronze sculpture sitting on a chair.

Installation view, Luther Price: The Dry Remains, Callicoon Fine Arts, New York, NY, 2015

A photograph of the gallery's basement with one film being projected on the back wall. At right is a bronze sculpture seated on a stool. At left is a circle that encloses a red eyeball, seemingly illustrated.

Installation view, Luther Price: The Dry Remains, Callicoon Fine Arts, New York, NY, 2015

A photograph of the gallery's basement, which hosts 3 videos on 2 walls facing one another. They are tessellated images that include varied medical images and portraiture

Installation view, Luther Price: The Dry Remains, Callicoon Fine Arts, New York, NY, 2015

A photograph of the gallery's basement and a single projection o a wall. The images in the projection are medical, and depict a large bloody gash. At left we can see a projector on a metal stand.

Installation view, Luther Price: The Dry Remains, Callicoon Fine Arts, New York, NY, 2015

Press Release

Callicoon Fine Arts is very pleased to present The Dry Remains, an exhibition of recent and early works by Luther Price opening on Thursday, September 17th with a reception from 6 to 8pm and continuing through October 31st. This exhibition is concurrent with screenings of Price’s newly restored films and rarely screened video work at Anthology Film Archives (AFA) from September 18th to September 20th.

Since the mid 1980’s, Boston-based visual artist Luther Price has been known for his iconic, deeply personal, and at times disturbing, Super-8mm films and live performances. In recent years, Price has moved from the Super 8mm format to recycled, distressed, and hand-painted 16mm films and 35mm slides, initially as a practical way of sharing a likeness of his films without risking the original works. Eventually, Price began sequencing these slides and projecting them as loops. Selections of the slide-based work were featured in the 2012 Whitney Biennial and recently acquired by the Museum of Modern Art and the ICA Boston. 

The Dry Remains combined with AFA’s film and video screenings offer a rare opportunity to witness the breadth and diversity of Price’s work across several media spanning three decades and marks the 30th anniversary of the artist’s near fatal gunshot wound to his abdomen, an event which has remained at the forefront of the artist’s work. The exhibition frames recent works in the context of Price’s earlier sculptural installation, Eat Fuck Live Shit Want Need. The selections from this sculptural series follow an exhibition of Price’s pre-shooting sculptural work featured at Participant INC last year. 

Two new series of 35mm slide work, Meat: Chapter 3 and Sugar Fractures share similar strategies in sequencing with earlier Utopia slides and make use of 35mm Hollywood film trailers. Installed as triptychs, the slide carousels occupy the gallery’s lower and main level. In addition to the slides, the exhibition introduces Price’s most recent work: paintings on canvas that incorporate slides, vellum, varnish and other collaged elements. Exhibited here for the first time, this series of paintings at once point to explorations in media new to the artist and continue Price’s visceral explorations of mortality and decay inexorably linked to his experimental film practice. 

In the last 10-15 years, Price has expedited the decay of material in his works by applying various household materials to the film surface: salt, cleaners, soil, and most recently, sugar. His latest approach culls visions of the artist’s most well known pseudonym, Tom Rhoades’ Cunt character from his early film and video work: Luther at his home (just a few blocks from where he grew up), smoking a cigarette, apron draped, in his kitchen, cooking up a batch of sugary 35mm slides with his three cats, Mr. Grey, Gurly, and Cartoon. 

Luther Price lives and works in Revere, MA. He studied Sculpture and Media/Performing Arts at the Massachusetts College of Art and Design (BFA 1987) where he currently teaches. His work in film, performance, and installation has been shown extensively, nationally and internationally. His slide-based work was recently acquired by the Museum of Modern Art and the Institute of Contemporary Art/Boston. He recently had a comprehensive solo exhibition at Usdan Gallery at Bennington College and a solo show at the Carpenter Center for Visual Arts in Cambridge, MA. Other recent exhibitions and film screenings include Luther Price, Lost and Found, Transmediale, Berlin, 2014; The Years Made Flies, Participant INC, NY, 2014; How Deep is Your Love?, Dirty Looks at MoMA/PS1, 2013; James and Audrey Foster Prize, ICA, Boston, 2013; International Short Film Festival Oberhausen, 2013; Xavier Hufkens, Belgium, 2013; 7 Films by Luther Price, ICA, London, 2012; Second Nature: Abstract Photography Then and Now, DeCordova Sculpture Park and Museum, Lincoln, MA, 2012; #9, Callicoon Fine Arts, New York, 2012; Whitney Biennial, 2012. Earlier noteworthy participations include We Melt Away (A Walking Picture Palace of Ice), Light Industry, Brooklyn, NY, 2008; Project Cotton Candy, Performa 05 at Participant INC, NY; The American Century: Art & Culture 1900–2000, Whitney Museum of American Art, 2000; Imitation Of Life, Thread Waxing Space, NY, 1999; Big as Life: An American History of Super 8 Film, MoMA, NY, 1999.

Callicoon Fine Arts is located at 49 Delancey Street. Gallery hours are 10am to 6pm, Wednesday to Sunday. The nearest subway stops are the B and D trains at Grand Street, the J and Z trains at Bowery and the F, J, M and Z trains at Delancey-Essex Street.

 

Film Screenings at Anthology Film Archives (32 2nd Avenue at 2nd Street): 

Friday, September 18th, 8pm

CLOWN (1991/2002), Super 8mm to digital, 30min; JELLYFISH SANDWICH (1994), Super 8mm to digital, 17min; SODOM (1989), Super 8mm to 16mm, 21min; HOME (1999), Super 8mm to 16mm, 13min

Saturday, September 19th, 8pm

A (1995), Super 8mm to digital, 60min

Sunday, September 20th 6:30pm

GREEN (1988), Super 8mm to 16mm, 30min; WARM BROTH (1988), Super 8mm to 16mm, 36min

Sunday, September 20th, 8:30pm

SHIT RAGS (1986), VHS to digital, 10min excerpts; HOPELESSLY DEVOTED (1986), VHS to digital, excerpt; POTATO PIECE (1986), VHS to digital, 15min; TOTALLY HOT (1987), VHS to digital, 3min; MEAT - performance documentation (1992), VHS to digital, 10min excerpt; CLOWN 2: SCARY TRANSFORMATIONS - performance documentation (1994), 10min excerpt

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