06 July 2018 David Zwirner is pleased to present This Is Not a Prop at the gallery’s 525 and 533 West 19th Street locations in New York. The exhibition includes work by Alex Da Corte, Jonathas de Andrade, Felix Gonzalez-Torres, Jonah Groeneboer, Gordon Hall, Hannah Levy, Donald Moffett, Paulo Nazareth, Elle Pérez, Oren Pinhassi, Christina Quarles, Paul Mpagi Sepuya, Wolfgang Tillmans, and Franz West.
Oren Pinhassi’s (b. 1985) large plaster and glass sculptures reference the architecture of gay cruising sites where the private and public intersect. The sculptures, corporeal and rough, invite viewers into a sensual landscape where bodies are simultaneously hidden and exposed. Pinhassi’s work imagines the erotic potential of architecture and constructed spaces.
This Is Not a Prop brings together a multigenerational group of artists whose work explores the liminal space between body and object. The exhibition takes as its point of departure Franz West’s (1947–2012) furniture and Passstücke (Adaptives), which are represented in the show by three works: Paravent (Passstück) (Screen [Adaptive])(c. 1982); 2625 (1991/1999); and Passstücke (mit Video mit Verwendungstipps) (Adaptives [with Video with Usage Tips]) (1996). Intended to be interacted with, these works redefine art as a social experience and ask how objects can function both as physical extensions of the body and as representations of the human experience.
This Is Not a Prop is organized by Alec Smyth and Cristina Vere Nicoll.
