Charles Ginnever to Exhibit 'Rashomon' at San Jose Institute of Contemporary Art

CYNTHIA-REEVES has announced an exhibition of work by noted American sculptor, Charles Ginnever, at the San Jose Institute of Contemporary Art through February 16, 2013. Viewed as one of Contemporary Art's most prolific and ardent sculptors in the realm of minimalist abstraction, Ginnever's exhibition features one of his signal works, Rashomon, (1993-1995) in patinated bronze.

Known for his vanguard work in welded steel, found objects, and bronze, Ginnever creates works that can be viewed anew from virtually every angle, embracing and exploiting the possibilities of sculpture in the round. In Rashomon, the artist provides fifteen versions of the same form, each positioned in a way that reveals the sculpture's visual potential. The piece was titled after the famous Kurosawa film that tells the same story from four different perspecives.

Ginnever's Rashomon "slips from whatever mental grasp of it a viewer may have won whenever it is placed in a new position. [His] intention for Rashomon is as elemental as its design. In a society in which the integration of space and time is consigned to the realm of idea rather than that of direct physical experience, the work proposes to return human perception to its original state." (Kenneth Baker, Charles Ginnever: Rashomon)

Ginnever began his in career in the 1950s, but came to a seminal moment when discussing the philosphy of sculpture with his peer, Mark Di Suvero. They were admiring the force and newness of abstract expressionsim in painting, and determined that the world of sculpture needed a similar revolutionary approach. This marked a departure for both artists from direct modeling, to create sculpture that arises from the materials, and further, which emphasizes an expression of the form in space. His peers in this movement include Eva Hesse, Walter de Maria, and John Chamberlain, among other noted sculptors.

As viewers perambulate around a Ginnever sculpture, they are aware of how different each planal surface reads, both in and of itself, and in relation to the other surfaces. The sculptures open and close, they move and morph, they play perceptual tricks on the eye. The works appear flat and one-dimensional from one vantage point. Mere steps further, however, viewers are confronted with a confoundingly new, dynamic and thought-provoking perspective that is fully three-dimensional, a work that is fully projecting itself into space. Ginnever writes: "Perspective has nothing to do with how forms of sculpture actually appear. Yet we expect things to behave in a certain way, which my sculptures intentionally refuse to do."

Ginnever's work has been exhibited at the most respected sculpture venues in the United States, including: The Metropolitan Museum of Art, Storm King, Laumeier Sculpture Park, Grounds for Sculpture, The DeCordova Museum and Sculpture Park, The Hirshhorn Museum, The Smithsonian, The Walker Arts Center, The Seattle Art Museum, and Lynden Sculpture Park, among others. Many institutions include his work in their Permanent Collections. Charles Ginnever is represented by CYNTHIA-REEVES since 2012.

The San Jose Institute of Contemporary Art is located on South First Street in San Jose (www.sjica.org). For more information on this and other works by Charles Ginnever, please contact the gallery at 212 714 0044, or visit the online gallery at Cynthia-Reeves.com.