NEW YORK, NY.- Maccarone announces an exhibition of new works by Agathe Snow, a configuration of papier-mâché and fiberglass sculptures that hang from ceiling to floor. The subjects are allegorical, ranging from the thrill-seeking to slow-moving: from a spit ball fight between school children, a scuffle between Mary Poppins and Santa Claus, to the leisurely acts of catching butterflies in a net, fishing, and watering flowers. Each scene is a part of Snow's representation of "purgatory", a present, which loops infinitely, and where hope is the artificial light at the end of the tunnel.
Snow's sculptures are modeled after early optical toys predating cinema, such as the thaumatrope, in which still images are arranged in a star-like shape on a spindle and rotate to create the illusion of movement. Snow's sculptures are freeze frames taken at the height of an animation's narrative arc, with the action culminating at the center of the sculptures. There, at the psychic and physical core, cause and effect distill, creating a centrifugal force that seeks to reconcile the push and pull between action and inertia/nadir and zenith.
These hanging objects' arrangements are visually accessible from every vantage point, allowing multiple perspectives. Relatable imagery culled from the annals of pop culture and everyday life are easily recognizable and rife with associations. Snow's unique visual vernacular illuminates an underlying perversity that subverts any pretense of innocent play.
Agathe Snow was born in Corsica in 1976, and currently lives and works in Mattituck, New York. Her signature practice of bringing discordant elements together can be found in all facets of her oeuvre, ranging from her sculptural motifs to the creation of communally shared meals and 24- hour dance-a-thons, culminating in a presentation at the 2008 Whitney Biennial.
Recent solo exhibition include "All Access World," Guggenheim Berlin; "Views from the Top, Vertigo and Constellations," Jeu de Paume, Paris; "Master Bait Me,"New Museum, New York. Selected group exhibitions include "Aberrant Abstraction," Nerman Museum of Contemporary Art, Kansas City; "The Whitney Biennial 2008", Whitney Museum of American Art, New York; "In Practice: The Assholes of NYC," Sculpture Center, New York; "Interwoven Echoes" Migros Museum, Zurich.
