Time Out New York
ART
Gedi Sibony
CANADA
55 Chrystie Street
Lower East Side
By Eugenie Tsai
Utilizing materials associated with Home Depot - carpet remnants, hollow-core doors, foam insulation, packing tape - Gedi Sibony has cobbled together a dozen structures that rest on the floor or hang on the wall for "The Qualities Depend on Other Qualities," his first solo show at CANADA. As the title suggests, interdependence is a key element of the exhibition; formally and conceptually, the pieces play off of one another as a dynamic ensemble. Although a makeshift quality characterizes each work, the improvised effect is too calculated to be accidental. Sibony's work is clearly indebted to sculpture of the late '60s and early '70s - the anti-form pieces of Robert Morris and Barry Le Va come to mind, along with the whimsical gestures of Richard Tuttle. His intuitive ability to divine not just the formal, but the allusive potential of unexpected materials sets him apaprt from his predecessors. For example, while one side of Unititled (2003), a free-standing door, is largely unaltered, the other sideis covered with a crazy quilt of carpet remnants, stapled together and affixed face down so the contrasting minigrids of their rubberized backings are revealed. Angular pieces of cardboard covered by packing-tape grids provide a witty counterpoint. While doors and carpeting refer to a vernacular cultural landscape (tract houses or industrial parks), Sibony sometimes uses material drawn directly from nature. In A Perfectly Faithful Replica (2004), a jagged upright shape carved from foam insulation is "mirrored" on the wall behind it by a frame outlined in driftwood sticks painted silver. Sibony's poetic transformation of materials, both natural and man-made, makes his sculptural explorations richly rewarding.
Published: May 20-27, 2004