Centre for Contemporary Culture at Palazzo Strozzi
Palazzo Strozzi
Michael Dean
Ruled by symmetry, balance and poetry, the worksof Dean abridge the two characteristic features of his work, writingand performance, and show how the heavy materiality of concrete can become light, like an origami
MICHAEL DEAN
Untitled, 2015
Concrete, paper, ink
cm 5 x 32 x 66
Courtesy Supportico Lopez
Berlin
For several years Michael Dean has been creating sculptures in which form and language find a solid balance. The shapes, similar to vertical concrete steles, bear engravings resembling a cryptic alphabet. Each sculpture is associated with a word that also characterizes itsformal dimension. Ruled by symmetry, balance and poetry, the worksof Dean abridge the two characteristic features of his work, writing and performance, and show how the heavy materiality of concrete can become light, like an origami. Many geometric lines of these elements actually represent an obscure alphabet whose letters shape out the work. In recent years, the forms of the artist’s sculptures have evoked human morphology. Parts of the body, such as tongues, are in fact suggestedthrough more organic shapes. Dean’s exploration also highlights theability to create a dialogue between photography and sculpture, througha tautological process in which images of the sculptures appear inphotographs which are then bent. In this private language made of secret codes, Dean offers works that take the shape of books written by the artist himself, and whose pages can be torn off and taken away by the viewers.
Michael Dean was born in 1977 in Newcastle Upon Tyne, UK. He lives and worksin London, UK. His solo exhibitions include: Qualities of Violence, De Appel Arts Centre,Amsterdam (2015); Jumping Bones, Extra CityKunstal Antwerp, Antwerp (2015); HA HA HA HA HA HA, Kunst Forum Ludwig, Aachen(2014); Sounds of Fucking, Sounds of Dying,Mendes Wood, São Paulo (2013); Government, Henry Moore Institute, Leeds (2012). Among his participations to group shows we note: The Registry of Promise: The Promise of Literature, Soothsaying and Speaking in Tongues, DeVleeshal, Middelburg (2015); The Noing Uv It, Bergen Kunsthall, Bergen (2014); Le musée d’une nuit (script for leaving traces), DRAF at the Fondation Hippocrène, Paris (2014); A History of Inspiration, Palais de Tokyo, Paris (2013); Beyond the Fragile Geometry of Sculpture, DeVleeshal, Middelburg (2011).
