3M (LETRASET)
11 december 2020-28 february 2021
Featuring works by
Daniel Healey
PRESS RELEASE
Gallery 169 and PBA Projects are pleased to present 3M (Letraset), a solo exhibition of works by artist Daniel Healey.
3M (Letraset) is an extension of Healey’s engagement with the historical Postwar Avant-Garde as he remixes found objects and mundane materials, such as 3M Scotch tape, old consumer catalogues, vintage papers, and Letraset into new, unexpected forms. In the two series presented, 3M Tape paintings and Letraset drawings, Healey’s experiments engage with the aesthetic strategies and procedures of his artistic predecessors—such as Marcel Duchamp, Robert Rauschenberg and John Cage—which challenge notions of the self-contained and autonomous by employing Dada-like chance operations as foils to subjective decision making.
While his application pushes new boundaries, Healey’s 3M Tape paintings reference traditional paintings with layers of gesso, pigment abstractions, and varnish on a canvas support. However, unlike the post-painterly abstractions of Helen Frankenthaler or the Impressionist forms created by Monet, Healey crafts each layer via manual ink transfer from catalogue to canvas under a Scotch tape varnish.
Similarly, Healey uses a low-tech application in his Letraset drawings. His use of a commercial typeface transfer on vintage found papers employs the same chance operations to different effect. These works engage in dialogue with text-based Conceptual art of the 1960s and ‘70s and address the ongoing negotiation of the relationship between subjective and objective, technical and deskilled, and the unique versus mass-produced.
In his essay, “Archives, Documents, Traces,” philosopher Paul Ricoeur asserts:
A criticism is born that takes as its task to discover the monument hiding behind the document, a more radical form of criticism than the critique of authenticity that assured victory of the document over the monument. This new form of criticism directs its attack against the conditions of historical production and its concealed or unconscious tensions. . . “the document is a monument” because the document “functions as a trace left by the past.”
The accumulation of archival materials in Healey’s tape paintings and Letraset drawings, such as the catalogues and vintage papers, and their subsequent destruction, create a reciprocal polarity. The systems that bind Healey’s project are as much an act of destruction as they are an active construction. Healey’s use of found images, objects, and texts from the past serve as a metaphorical Duchampian ironing board.
Daniel Healey (b. 1981, Orange, CA) is a California native who lives and works in Los Angeles, which he has called home since 2017. His work has been exhibited in galleries and museums nationally and overseas, such as: The Drawing Center, New York City; Artspace, Sydney; the Schlick Art Gallery, Skidmore College, New York; and McLoughlin Gallery, San Francisco, amongst others.
3M (Letraset) is organized by PBA Projects and Brooke Gerson Kumar in collaboration with Gallery 169 in Los Angeles. PBA Projects is an independent creative platform founded by Pietro Alexander in 2020. 3M (Letraset) is his inaugural curatorial venture. Brooke Gerson Kumar is an independent art advisor respected within the Los Angeles art community for producing various events and artist exhibitions.
Gallery 169 was founded by Frank Langen and has been operating since 2008. The gallery focuses on both established and emerging artists, hosting exhibitions in its Santa Monica Canyon setting.
During the Covid-19 pandemic, the gallery is open by appointment only. For the safety of all involved. masks and social distancing will be strictly enforced in compliance with all local, state, and federal guidelines. Capacity is limited to 4 viewers at a time, and all must maintain a minimum 6-foot distance between themselves, other visitors, and gallery staff at all times. To schedule a viewing, please e-mail info@pietroalexander.com.