Thomas J Price: Resilience of Scale
The exhibition is on view at 134 Wooster St. until June 14.
Image Courtesy of Hauser & Wirth
As Thomas J Price’s artworks tower over you, it makes you wonder: Who are these people? What are their stories? What are they feeling? For his first major solo exhibition at Hauser & Wirth in New York City, Resilience of Scale confronts marginalization, hierarchy, and perspective. The gallery space allows viewers to analyze Price’s 12-foot bronze figures from a 360-degree point of view to delve into his narrative, as well as their own relation to it, rather than from a literal and figurative distance.
When you walk into the gallery, you’re faced with four black-painted bronze figures to the left and right (Time Unfolding, A Kind of Confidence, As Sounds Turn to Noise, and Within the Folds), and directly in front of you is a golden bronze figure (A Place Beyond). These grandiose structures pay homage to everyday people by making them larger than life. Their sizes and materials mirror how monuments were historically made in Western traditions. Oftentimes, these monuments were exclusive to people in power and the ruling class.
Image Courtesy of Hauser & Wirth
Price’s monuments, however, are people he observed on the street, found in magazines, and at open-cast callings. Although the figures are fictional identities, they radiate familiarity within the mundane. To make these eminent sculptures, Price uses digital sculpting and lost-wax casting.
The figures in Resilience of Silence are standing in relaxed poses, wearing relaxed-fit clothes and athleisure, and even A Kind of Confidence, who is wearing a suit. A Place Beyond, the golden bronze alloy, signifies the rich history of ancient Egypt and modern consumerism today.
Image Courtesy of Hauser & Wirth
Concurrent with this exhibition, Times Square Arts will present Price’s massive bronze figure, Grounded in the Stars, in Times Square, at Broadway and 46th Street, until June 17. Price’s stop-motion animations from his Man Series will also be presented on over 90 of the Times Square district’s billboards nightly from 11:57 pm to 12 am, until May 31, as a part of the Midnight Moment program.
Resilience of Scale is on view until June 14 at Hauser & Wirth at 134 Wooster St.
