James Krone, Trickle Down Ergonomics: Kavi Gupta | 835 W. Washington Blvd. Chicago, IL, 60607

Kavi Gupta is proud to present Trickle Down Ergonomics, the debut Chicago exhibition by the Berlin artist, James Krone. Comprising the exhibition will be select works from Krone’s Ceremonial Painting (2010), a suite of paintings and chairs entitled Chair Paintings (2010).

Krone’s Ceremonial Paintings (2010) relate the repetitious role of painting in an artist’s life to the historical indexing of the modern black painting. The works problematize the rigid interpretations often produced by art history’s associative patterns. As what the artist calls ‘paintings in drag’, Krone’s Ceremonial Paintings are freed from the immediate and standard references to Stella or Reinhardt. Instead, they bring the entire process, whether it be the individual who makes work in the studio or the combined effort to historize art, under scrutiny.

With a similiar approach Krone created the suite of Chair Paintings (2010). Rather than treating the production of art as an exploration into all the outlying possibilities, the Chair Paintings delineate a single banal event; specifically, the making four paintings to correspond to the floral patterned cushions on four chairs in the artist’s studio. Like the extended activity that contextualizes the Ceremonial Paintings, this suite of floral paintings calls into question how one defines finitude and specificity.

James Krone (b. 1975 in Chicago) lives and works in Berlin. Recent exhibitions include Vivere Country Group Show (2010) at the Grimm Museum in Berlin, The Wilderness Is The Witches Leash (2010) at Country Club Projects in Los Angeles, and Ayran & Yoga, the first edition of the Berlin-Kreuzberg Biennale (2010) (Galerie Im Regie rungs viertel). Upcoming exhibitions include Mein So Called Kampf (2011) with LA artist Justin Baner Hansch at Preteen Gallery in Hermosillo, Mexico.