TRUNCATED BOVINITY

Charlie Leese 

03.5.2020 - 03.28. 2020 

Minnesota Street Project

Gallery 211

Opening Reception March 7th from 5-8pm

Bass & Reiner Gallery is pleased to present the TRUNCATED BOVINITY series, an installation by Charlie Leese. This is the artists’ second exhibition with B&R, and first solo presentation with the gallery. The show is composed of three large sculptures or SHELLS that Leese sees as iterations of the same form, alongside two large vinyl prints and a series of zines. The SHELLS -- cylindrical shapes or vessels evacuated of their intended function-- are architectural models of non-existent worlds. Similar to the Italian style ‘incompiuto architecture’, the SHELLS are forms that can never be whole; grotesque yet full of character, living as brand new ruins. Decaying carcasses, abandoned motor casings, dumped microwave ovens, their only hope is to be reimagined by the viewer. Juxtaposed against the sculptures, the prints create two still moments that underline an intersection of cyclical metropolitan redistribution, highlighting the fractured realities. Leese argues that “with no in between zones, we are constantly pushing against the edges of our limitations causing friction and stark contrast between the slick rhetoric of new technologies and the murky sludge of such undeniable byproducts of sector specific prosperity” 

Charlie Leese (Nebraska, 1985) is a San Francisco based visual artist. He is the Co-founder and Creative Director of Hunt Projects and the Co-founder of Cloaca Projects, an exhibition space and Gallery in Bay View in San Francisco CA. Leese holds a BFA in sculpture from RISD and has exhibited works at 100% Gallery, San Francisco; Bass and Reiner Gallery, San Francisco; McLoughlin Gallery, San Francisco; Southern Exposure, San Francisco; Alter Space, San Francisco; The Wurks, Providence, RI. In 2018, he was selected for ‘Bay Area Now 8’ hosted by Yerba Buena Center For The Arts, San Francisco. His most recent project includes a Project Space Commission by SFMOMA Open Space.