PRESS RELEASE

MONTI8 is delighted to announce its new exhibition Out of Place, featuring the works by Phlipp Kremer, Sam Bornstein, Alex Leav and paintings from private collections of Elizabeth Glaessner and Anthony Cudahy, opening on October 29th and running through November 25th. Through images that depict a distorted reality, this exhibition investigates a parellel world, a suspended atmosphere frozen in time, sometimes suggesting a sense of misteryousness, anxiety, uncertainty or dreaminess. 

In the practice of Philipp Kremer (Duisburg, Germany, 1981) human bodies are the main subject on his canvas. The figures are always distorted, entwined, embraced, caught in intimate and private moments of love and sex, which convey a strong feeling of joy and happiness, a feeling underlined by the pigments that he usually chooses. Every body is depicted with broad brushstrokes, almost monochromatic, alternating primary and secondary colours, used sometimes to distinguish figures from one another.

 The sense of intimacy is even more marked in the works of Sam Bornstein (New York, 1983). His paiting is built on warm tones that suggest a perception of familiarity, helping the viewer to empethize with the scenes Bornstein pictures. Many layers intersect on the surface: artist’s personal experiences are merged with his surroundings – made by his family, friends and the city he lives in, New York – as well as invented elements that compose new narrations. 

Alex Leav (New York, 1997) investigates identity in the age of technology, especially related to the use of social media. She reflects on the overabundace of images and contents created by social networks that guides the global today’s society. The profusion of contents generated by social networks in our time, is explored on the artist’s canvases with chaotic compositions, where different elements coexist in a disordered way: twisted forms, mixed one into the other, move frantically on the surface without any hierarchy.

 The show is enriched by two paintings by Elizabeth Glaessner and Anthony Cudahy, coming from private collections.