Currently on view at American Contemporary, New York is “Problem In Chair Not In Computer,” a solo exhibition by Ethan Cook.  Borrowing its title from the acronym PICNIC, a slang term used in technical circles to communicate a user error, Ethan Cook’s exhibition takes up what is productive in the balance between perfection and imperfection. In Cook’s paintings, it is the very instances of snag and inconsistency that offer complexity and composition. Hewn from hand woven cotton canvas that is stitched together with store-bought canvas, the fallibility of the human hand is emphasized by its abuttal to the conformity of what a factory can produce. Cook drives the repetition inherent to factory labor to the picture plane, practicing over and over the construction of similar forms, colors, and compositions; not to exhaust them, but rather to extract something different from each iteration, marking incremental changes with each result.

Installation view.  Courtesy of American Contemporary.

Installation view. Courtesy of American Contemporary.

Ethan Cook, Untitled, 2014, Hand woven cotton canvas and canvas in artist’s frame, 96 x 166 inches. Courtesy of American Contemporary.

Ethan Cook, Untitled, 2014, Hand woven cotton canvas and canvas in artist’s frame, 96 x 166 inches.
Courtesy of American Contemporary.

 

“Problem In Chair Not In Computer” is on view through April 12, 2014.

For more information visit American Contemporary, New York.