Cirrus Gallery & Cirrus Editions, Ltd. is pleased to announce two coinciding solo exhibitions featuring artists, Jason Roberts Dobrin and Allan McCollum.
The practices of McCollum and Dobrin are aesthetically antithetical. McCollum’s works epitomize abstraction, reducing forms to their most essential states. Dobrin’s works explore representations of cultural iconography materializing through sculptural globs of paint. It is quite unexpected that these visually disparate practices would share deep conceptual underpinnings. Each artist utilizes repetition to consider materiality and value. Their dedication to the constant reiteration of a select cast of forms is laborious. And yet, within this surprising emulation of complimentary ideals are differences that extend past aesthetic functionality. Each artist uses repetition to destabilize frameworks of mass production, however, their manifestations of repetition and variation emerge as oppositional antagonizations of the same subject matter.
For Dobrin, repetition is used to illuminate inanimate cultural icons. Dobrin’s repetition of formal elements critique/mimic the dehumanization and lack of individuality throughout mass production. He transforms otherwise mundane objects into societal emblems. Each representation is fundamentally unique (usually painted from a different angle or portrayed within an entirely new composition), yet these variations seem to reinforce the overarching symbolism of each object. For Dobrin, variations in repetitions clearly communicate the overpowering eminence of iconography. In this series, Dobrin explores fantastical representations of cryptocurrency — these paintings are intended to be humorous illustrations of capital that are otherwise functionally divorced from physical archetypes. While seemingly lighthearted, Dobrin's highly saturated portrayals of cryptocurrency carry sinister undertones. Within our amusement we are forced to recognize that these personifications of Bitcoin are only comical as a form of satire — illuminating the forever elusive and precarious state of cryptocurrency's supposed value and form.
McCollum has created an ongoing series of abstract shapes, exploring the potential for variation through repetition. McCollum’s use of repetition interrogates systems of mass production, giving way to endless numbers of singular shapes each generated by hand. Unlike commodities of mass production, each shape is entirely unique. McCollum’s newest release, For the Millions/Just for You demands an exhibition space of its own. Each number in the edition features 72 unique prints. No shape is repeated throughout the edition of 50. For McCollum, an egalitarian abundance of form destabilizes assumptions of material value. Corporations may be able to produce seemingly infinite carbon copied commodities, but meanwhile McCollum has devised his own methodology of production, one that demonstrates a potential for infinite variation. His use of difference within repetition destabilizes mass production, illuminating the eternal possibility of form.