Jay Grimm Gallery Archive

For Immediate Release:

Patrick Strzelec sculpture at Jay Grimm Gallery, Chelsea

reviews

Jay Grimm Gallery at 505 West 28th Street, New York, will hold an exhibition of sculpture by Patrick Strzelec from February 25 through March 25, 2000. There will be a reception at the gallery on Friday, February 25, from 6-8 P.M.

Strzelec's work subtly alters the Modernist vocabulary by combining dissimilar materials and shapes. His forms set up expectations of straightforward solutions, which are then confounded through unexpected shifts of volume and scale. The results are sometimes humorous and sometimes deeply serious. Strzelec's ability to balance these variables makes his work fresh and relevant.

The exhibition at Jay Grimm will consist of three sculptures. The largest, made of over 70 pieces of two-inch-thick hot-rolled steel bars, is almost 9 feet wide and deep, but only 50 inches high. The tangled metal web creates a sense of dramatic compression, as the bars burst outward, but not up. Two other pieces in the show, one using steel and red rubber, the other made out of plaster and copper, reinforce the feeling of pressure, as they fill the relatively small gallery. The viewer will become conscious of Strzelec's alteration of negative space immediately upon entry, as the works impose their own order upon their surroundings.

Pamela Franks, in an essay that is published in the announcement for the show, writes,

The relationship between steel and red rubber is the basis of Strzelec's honest use of materials, and the tension between mass and space allows him an avenue to credible form. But the human scale of the three sculptures gives them their real pull. Physical facts and structural logic can communicate, and here they communicate with gut-level conviction.

Patrick Strzelec has been the subject of several one-person exhibitions at Barbara Toll Fine Arts, New York. His work has been commissioned for the United States Holocaust Museum in Washington, D.C., for Rutgers University in New Jersey and many private collections. Strzelec's work has also been collected by numerous public institutions, among them the Aldrich Museum, the Newark Museum, and the Toledo Museum. Strzelec is currently included in the "Invitational Exhibition" at the National Academy of Arts and Letters, New York City.

Gallery hours are Wednesday through Saturday, 11-6 P.M., and by appointment. Please contact the Gallery at 212.564.7662 for images and additional information.