Howard Scott Gallery Opens 'Shims + Constructions' Exhibition, 9/6

Howard Scott Gallery has announced the opening – on Thursday, 6 September – of
Shims + Constructions, an exhibition by artists Rick Klauber and Robert Thiele.

In Rick Klauber's new works made out of carpentry shims, the artist engages in a process of destruction and rebirth. The shims are shattered, and out of their broken forms grow new relationships and patterns. Using a process of complex internal decision-making-when to paint, when to draw, where to connect, where to diverge-the resulting artworks give the viewer a sense of limitlessness, of an act hovering forever on the cusp of change.

The shims are painted and drawn upon at different times during the process, sometimes before the breaking, sometimes after. Klauber states, "The structure and vitality of the piece stems from this unsettled coexistence." Each piece becomes not whole again, but another species entirely, with its own unique character and story of color, line and movement. Individual artworks are exuberantly fixed in their own moment of creation, yet at the same time suggest endless possibility.

Rick Klauber, a native New Yorker, began showing his work when Robert Motherwell sponsored his debut show at Artists Space, NYC, in 1975. His work has been reviewed in Artforum, Art in America and the Brooklyn Rail. Rick Klauber's work is included in numerous public and private collections including Witherspoon Art Museum, NC, Arkansas Arts Center, AK, Reading Public Museum, PA, Ladenburg Thalmann, NYC, and DeBevoise and Plimpton, NYC.

Robert Thiele's works embrace physical aspects and formal concerns of both sculpture and painting. Recent works have been aptly described as constructed wall-sited object.

In the late 1990's Thiele focused increasingly on the smaller-scaled works and a distinct change begins to come over them. He increasingly favors finely nuanced shades of white and off-white with the paint more thinly applied. He also begins to use materials other than canvas on their front surfaces, including wood, Plexiglas and silk. In some, holes are cut into the surfaces and the construction so that one can literally see into their interiors, though the material screens prevent one from being able to discern what was inside. It is impossible to distinguish between what they reveal and what they conceal.

Thiele divides his time between Miami, Florida and Brooklyn, New York, maintaining a studio in both cities. He began exhibiting publicly in the early 1970s. He participated in the Whitney Museum of American Art's Biennial Exhibition in 1975. His work has been seen most widely in Florida, where he taught at two schools. His numerous solo exhibitions include several in public institutions. Among these are the Southeastern Center for Contemporary Art, Winston-Salem, North Carolina, in 1988 and Miami Art Museum, in 2001. The distinguished critics and curators who have written essays on his work include Peter Frank, Mark Ormond, Carter Ratcliff, and Robert J. Sindelir.