Towards is pleased to present A Thousand Years, a solo exhibition by New York based artist Yves Scherer.
Presenting all new works, the show expands on his interest in figurative sculpture. Through an immersive installation, Scherer combines elements of contemporary celebrity culture and religious iconography. In doing so, he raises questions surrounding spectacle, public vs. private lives, and the dream of eternal love.
Upon entering the gallery, you are confronted with extensive white space. The floor, beams, baseboards and walls have all been painted bright white. The objects that populate the space are arranged around the center of the room in a what appears to be a systematic manner – rectangular forms, mostly placed on the floor, in deliberate distance to one another at 90 degree angles.
The sound in the space comes from a video titled Love Yourself, named after a Justin Bieber song that was originally written by Ed Sheeran for Rihanna. The song centres around a troubled past relationship, and the grief and sorrow that follows it. The piece features a continuous shot of a Mexican beach hut with the artists vocals, supported by an acoustic guitar seemingly coming from the inside of it. The video is a montage with ambient noises added to the soundtrack and presented here on an iPad. This technological element stands in stark contrast to the feel of most of the other works included in the exhibition.
Shrine, a smaller enclosed work, features a plaster cast of the face of Emma Watson, the actor and UN Women Goodwill ambassador that Scherer has returned to in different bodies of work in recent years. Here Scherer turns Emma into The Virgin of Guadalupe, or a Virgin Mary, adorning her with flowers, and placing her within a gold-leaf box which acts as a sort of traveling altar built specifically to worship her.
Johnny & Kate, a large sculpture in the center of the back room also examines elements of celebrity culture. Based on an iconic image taken by Annie Leibowitz of Johnny Depp & Kate Moss, (the it-couple of the 90’s) a digital model was created and then CNC machined so that a mold could be created. The sculpture was then cast in Aluminium before adding gold coating and acrylic paint. Through its materiality, as well as overall shape (resembling a crucifix) Scherer transforms the object from pop-culture icon to sombre religious relic.
The other figures in the space are much less highly produced, fashioned out of found wood and somewhat roughshod. While still figurative in nature, the two sculptures Angel and Recline share a reduced formal language, referencing pre-historic art and a kind of primitivism championed by Picasso among others.
This process of reduction has been further pushed in the series of works Not Yet Titled. Linking the front area and the back space, these object work both as three dimensional or spatial collages, while at the same time forming an odd synthesis between manufactured material and a natural element. Placed on the floor, with the rectangular shapes of the underlay and theirmateriality – tarpaulin and newspaper for example – it appears as if the wooden twigs and branches are taking a well deserved rest.
A Thousand Years is a heaven–like environment that explores cultural history through the pink lenses of a romantic.
