Bad, Bath: Manfred Pernice

Opening Thursday, March 26, Anton Kern Gallery will present new work by German artist Manfred Pernice. This is the artist´s first solo exhibition in New York.

Manfred Pernice's drawings and architectural/sculptural models comment on the inherent opposition between interiors and exteriors. Varying structurally, Pernice's thematic interest is in the tension of taking what could be familiar and redefining or recreating it.

His drawings exhibited at PS 1, for instance, focused on hard to ascertain perspectives of a passenger or freighter boat. The series consists of seven drawings, and included situational suggestions. His most recent piece, in the Migrateur series at the Musée d'art moderne de la ville de Paris, is an element taken from the foreground of a De Chirico painting. The object, once only represented within the confines of a painting, has now taken on a far greater dimension. It stands alone and tall - completely removed from its original setting; a typical example of Pernice's extrapolation and divergence of what might be a familiar setting or sight.

Pernice's curiosity in structures, for example in-between spaces, terraces, outdoor swimming pools in winter, and passenger boats are made apparent by his commentary and challenge of the familiar. His models and drawings create detours and suggest new interpretations of environments. Pernice goes from small to big, juxtaposing situations and further articulating how space is used or how it is filtered. The result is at once unexpected, inherently challenging.