DECEMBERMAY, Anthony Goicolea’s third solo show with Aurel Scheibler in Berlin, will present new paintings and photographs completed during a period of retreat from his familiar urban surroundings. Subtler and more intimate in scale and subject, these photographs represent a departure from his disturbing, highly constructed and often sweeping compositions. Much of the imagery depicts the seasonal cocooning of winter, which allows reflection and offers renewal but is permeated with lonesome and at times threatening isolation. These abandoned settings seem to capture sites of sacrificial rituals that upon closer examination reveal traces of humanity. Dens of hoarded objects for the fulfillment of physical or mental needs—food, clothing, books, building materials—are piled up precariously. Cryptic script communicates with the world of the living or the dead. And, for the first time, young children make an appearance.
Any comfort is undermined by a familiar undercurrent of morbidity: fecundity is crippled by futile obsessiveness and decay, paths lead to uncertainty or death, means for passage are damaged, and the spirit world has broken through to our everyday reality. As messengers, however, the children bring with them a sense of renewal and hope for the future.
Anthony Goicolea was born in Atlanta in 1971 and lives and works in Brooklyn. He has recently participated in exhibitions at the Guggenheim Museum in New York and the Fotofestival in Knokke, Belgium. His Related series of the past two years has been shown at the Museum of Contemporary Art in Denver and at the Houston Center for Photography. His works are included in numerous public and private collections worldwide.
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