Tom Johnson
29 May - 28 July 2007
pictures 
On Tuesday 29 May 2007 the first one-man show in Italy of work by the American artist Tom Johnson opens in the Guido Costa Projects gallery in via Mazzini 24, Torino.
The public in Torino first got to know Tom Johnson (born in New York in 1966) when he performed Standing date (2005) on the occasion of the first Triennial. Each of his shows sees him working on the fringe of traditional practices, experimenting with crossover pieces that bear a contamination of styles and materials and invest his work with a personal and contemporary drive.
Coming from a strong academic background (he studied at Bard before working as an assistant to Matthew Barney for many years) Tom Johnson handles the materials of his sculptures masterfully and freely to exalt the stuff they made of, without denying the pieces' clearly conceptual origins.
His sculptures bring together lowly and sophisticated materials, creating a dialectic game resonant with tension. Often the lightness weighs heavily, while at other times the material density is rarefied to bring into question its own static nature, gravity and the load-bearing capacities of structures and surfaces.
These lively stylistic and formal experiments contain ancient references - a sort of paradoxical neo-country - and ultra-modern visions in close communion with the more interesting examples of new sculpture in the U.S. from Banks Violette to Terence Koh.
The exhibition in Torino tackles this complex articulation of space and forms through the use of very different materials, ranging from ceramics and metals to paper and wood. The almost geographical stratification that results is deliberately conjugated with primordial chroma, coupled with a keen eye on drawing and photography, pushing three-dimensional expression to its limits.
As a whole these pieces should be considered primarily as "action forms" and work in fieri rather than the concrete expression of an idea. Given the dynamism that provides the impetus for each piece, the result is astonishing.
Tom Johnson's output has its secret origins in performance, which is more or less openly expressed. This is clear when bearing in mind his other sculptures, which have all grown out of the realm of happenings, or interactions between pieces, surroundings and the public.
This exhibition fits into a broader gallery project dedicated to documenting the boundaries of contemporary sculpture. Begun in 2004 with the show dedicated to the work of Martin Kersels, and continued with two important exhibitions of work by Paul Etienne Lincoln, the project will be further expanded during the 2007-2008 season with two exemplary one-man shows of work by Paul Fryer and Robert Kusmirowski.
The exhibition is open to the public during gallery opening hours until 28 July 2007.
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Tom Johnson (New York City, 1966) divides his time between New York and Torino. He trained at the Bard College in Annadale and has exhibited regularly in the U.S. since 2000. In 2005 he took part in the Greater New York exhibition at the PS1 in New York and The pantagruel sindrome show at the Castello di Rivoli, Torino. The one-man exhibition at the Guido Costa Projects gallery will be his first in Italy. Tom Johnson is represented by the CANADA Gallery, New York, and Guido Costa Projects, Torino.