Lehmann Maupin would like to announce an exhibition of new work by Vincent Mazeau. This will be the artist's first solo exhibition at Lehmann Maupin Gallery.
Much like Luigi Pirandello's play Six Characters in Search of an Author, where the characters seek to fulfill their story on their own after the author fails to complete it, Vincent Mazeau's sculptures seem compelled to further their stories. For this exhibition, Mazeau faithfully re-creates familiar industrial and residential objects such as shipping palettes, police barriers, and piles of used tires, covering them in realistically rendered ice and snow or dramatically altering their dimensions.
Regarding the process of craft as part of the subject, Mazeau constructs these everyday objects by investigating materials and shifting the objects' scale. Neither found nor pre-fabricated objects, these sculptures are presented in unexpected locations like galleries and museums, so that their utilitarian purpose and designation are suddenly re-cast. The simulated snow and ice, manufactured from Styrofoam and urethane, and the absurd scale shifts cause a feeling of dysfunction and an absence of purpose.
Vincent Mazeau received a Master's of Fine Arts degree from Yale University in 1995. His work has been included in recent exhibitions at the Contemporary Arts Center in Cincinnati, the Rubin Museum of Art in New York, and the 2002 Biennial Exhibition at the Whitney Museum of Art in New York. He currently lives and works in New York.