RICHARD DEACON

THURSDAY, OCTOBER 18th – NOVEMBER 17th, 2007
OPENING: THURSDAY, OCTOBER 18th

Galerie Thaddaeus Ropac is pleased to announce the upcoming exhibition of British sculptor, Richard Deacon on Thursday, October 18th through November 17th. The artist will show new works in wood and ceramic -- as well as a monumental stainless steel sculpture entitled Another Mountain.

Known for an imaginative and sometimes unexpected use of materials, Deacon has been surprising us with sculptures of supreme beauty and controlled structure for many years. It is often the tension between these two aspects, the unusual, perhaps organic, shape with a surface skin that is both of the work and alien to it, that makes Deacon’s art so striking. His uncanny way of seeing an object in space is particular and this position often asks more questions than it answers.

With Another Mountain, Deacon continues the exploration of large standing forms, that he began last year with a permanent commission for the Echigo Tsumari Art Triennial in Japan. By taking tubular steel sections, rounding the ends, and then creating a three-dimensional web structure, we see both a playful and serious exploration of space pulled open in unsuspected ways by these sausage shaped elements. The thoughtful method of seeing how three tips can find a way to balance together forming a join, the simple structure of four on the ground forming the base upon which it all hangs together, the asymmetry of each section of sculpture working against one another, seeming to pull it one way and then back the other: this is the magic of a Deacon sculpture. There is a dialogue between how is stands, and how it wants to fall over, but doesn’t. As you look around and through it, the hand of an artist that loves materials for what he can make them do, and how splendid he can make them look, is evident.

The skin of the work is a varied medley of different surface treatments created with soft grinding. As the light changes it moves from seeming like snake skin, to water in the sunlight, to the matted down feathers of a duck’s back, and these elements, with the almost clumsy stance of the work, create a whole range of emotions and tonalities.

Richard Deacon represented Wales this year at the Venice Biennale and recently presented an important wooden sculpture, The Garden, at the Louvre in the “Counterpoint III” exhibition last spring. He is currently on the faculty of the Ecole des Beaux-Arts. The artist lives and works in London, dividing his time between Paris, London and Cologne.