Christopher Rose
February 27 – April 11, 2009
Schalter is pleased to announce Wald (Forest), an exhibition by New York-based artist Christopher Rose. For this exhibition, Rose has been invited to create a large wall-sized mural, painted directly on the wall of Schalter. This is Rose's second exhibition at the project space, and his first solo presentation in Berlin.
Wald continues an investigation opened by Rose in his series of paintings and drawings "American Landscapes." Using found and mass media images of highways and gridlock, car accidents and crowds, or dense "old growth" forests and woods in North America, Rose illustrates and contrasts twin articulations of the "wild." The viewer is asked to balance contemporary urban sprawl with the mythic lure of pristine wilderness. Whereas previously Rose's work has been presented on the canvas or paper, here Rose will work directly on the wall, breathing the work's impenetrability to a life-size scale.
Central to Rose's practice is an interest in the moment when natural and synthetic systems break down, spiral out of control or otherwise prove irrational. Images of riots and crowds figure high on his palette, and as Rose states, "the represented forms walk the thin line between the mathematic or rational nature of the system and the irrational intuitive nature of the hand drawn lines." Wald questions our ability to categorize in both form and content and casts a suspicious eye on the paradox of America's Manifest Destiny.
Christopher Rose lives and works in Brooklyn, New York. His work has been shown throughout the United States as well as in Europe. Among other honors, he was selected for 2007-08 PS122 Gallery exhibition in New York. Rose received his MFA from the School of the Art Institute of Chicago.