Exhibition: Noon and Afternoon

Libby Rothfeld Noon and Afternoon November 5 - December 17 2017

Image of a persons feet and black heeled shoes as they walk away on a side walk.
 

Artforum

Bureau is pleased to announce a solo exhibition by Libby Rothfeld, the artist’s first with the gallery, following AAa:Quien with Erica Baum this past January. For Noon and Afternoon, Rothfeld debuts a new group of sculptures and wall works composed of readymade and handmade objects, deliberately altered into unsettling amalgams. Throughout the exhibition, water bottles—some half-filled, some empty, all ultimately abandoned—rest on weathered laminate surfaces. Nondescript clothing, preserved in plastic, drapes and hangs over furniture-like constructions. Wall works, taped and chipped, support discarded papers, even more plastic bottles, academic figure renderings, printed images, scribbles, and appropriated doodles. Nearby hang handmade masks marking the evolutionary phase of homo sapiens, some paired with blown-up snapshots and hats. Caught in a kind of purgatory, the many elements comprising the show waver between arbitrary placement and specific motive. Through combinations of real and made, preserved and discarded, historical and banal, Rothfeld constructs situations and juxtapositions that dispense with hierarchies-- as objects and materials are liberated from their ordinary function. The drawings, masks, photographs and structures cast the hand’s application as anything but a game of chance. In placing gestures and objects on the same platform their values and identities are disassembled; unravelling aesthetic and fundamental assumptions and surrendering to a language of logic and symbol. Rothfeld’s work incites the viewer to question why this and not that when we know very well there are no answers. Libby Rothfeld (b. 1990, New Brunswick, New Jersey; lives and works in New York) received her BFA from New York University. Recent solo and two-person exhibitions include, 1999, Antoine Renard & Libby Rothfeld, curated by Siliqoon, Marsèlleria, Milan; A Dumb Sound, A Sweet Bell, Anne Libby & Libby Rothfeld, 315 Gallery, Brooklyn; AAa:Quien, Bureau, New York; Libby Rothfeld, First Continent, Baltimore; and Good To Think With, Good To Think Against, Kimberly-Klark, New York. Group exhibitions include Homestead, Carl Louie, London, Ontario; In The Hopes of Not Being Considered, Kate Werble Gallery, New York; Boil the Ocean, Bodega, New York; Daydream 2013, Canada, New York; Welcome to Earth, The Story So Far..., High Tide, Philadelphia; 2000, Sydney-Sydney, Sydney, Australia. Rothfeld has had residencies at Siliqoon, Milan, Italy; Interstate Projects, Brooklyn, New York; OxBow, Saugatuck, Michigan, and Yaddo, Saratoga Springs, New York. Her work has been featured in The New Yorker, Sex Magazine Sorry Archive and others.

Image of an artwork installed on a wall that is on the right of the shot. The artwork is an image of a ladies feet, walking away. A hat hands to the right of the artwork. To the left is a well lit hallway.
Gallery view with a photographic artwork installed on a wall to the right. On the left is a sculpture in the form of a desk and two chairs. Water bottles sit on the desk and two cardboard boxes sit at the edge of the sculpture.
Gallery view with eight pieces on view. Some are sculptural works resembling abstract furniture, and some are 2D artworks hanging on the wall.
Image of an Artwork installed on the wall. Contains images, drawings, and water bottles.
Gallery shot of three artworks. One is a sculptural piece, resembling the form of a chair with empty waterbottles on top. Another, an image of a nature scene. And last, two masks hanging up on the wall.
Image of two masks made from clay with expressive faces, gazing at the viewer.

Untitled (Two Masks), 2017, Ultracal cast from ceramic, 14 × 25 × 4 inches

Image of a mask made of clay installed on the left, next to a straw brim hat, hanging on the wall.

Untitled (Mask and Hat), 2017, Ultracal cast from ceramic, hat, 13 × 29 × 3 ½ inches

Image of an artwork that includes drawings of hands, photos of sushi, and a water bottle inserted into the piece.

Bulletin Board #1, 2017, Laminate, water bottle, UV plexi prints, charcoal, tape, paper, thumb tack, 37 × 37 ½ × 5 inches

Installation image of a sculptural piece to the left of a photographic artwork of a hand, and a mask installed on the piece. The sculptural piece resembles a hanger and has five coats hanging from it, and a dozen water bottles scattered around and on it.
Image of a photographic artwork of a hand with writing on the palm in front of a lawn chair. On the bottom left of the artwork is a clay mask installed.

Hand (Mask), 2017, Vinyl print, ultracal cast from ceramic, 48 × 36 × 4 ½ inches

Gallery view with multiple sculptures on view, as well as 2D works hanging on the wall. A hallway is on the right, leading down to the front of the gallery where another sculpture is visible.
Image of a sculpture that resembles a chair, with six coats in dry cleaning bags hanging on the backrest of the chair.

Chair / System, 2017, Laminate, clothing, plastic bags, hangers, water bottles, 39 × 31 ⅛ × 18 ¼ inches