Surface Magazine Reviews "Fred Wilson: Chandeliers"

For Bronx-born artist Fred Wilson, context is king.

Starting this Friday, the self-described “contextual” conceptual artist is offering up a number of his dark Murano glass chandelier pieces—some on display for the first time—at New York’s (opens in a new window) newly reopened Chelsea arm of the Pace Gallery, 540 West 25th Street. There, the 19-foot-high ceilings of the new space will drip with these objects that come from a decorate category of design whose examples are often ignored overhead. But the unique appearance and dark colors of Wilson’s chandeliers urgently draw attention. These “heavy, fragile, complex beings,” as he calls them, are full of emotion and subtle details. Some hold aspects of both Ottoman and Venetian traits, exploring a historical relationship between African and European cultures he calls “deep and fascinating.”

It’s all part of the inaugural set of exhibitions at 540 West 25th Street which will see Wilson’s work presented alongside that of legends Alexander Calder and David Hockney, and still-rising American painter Loie Hollowell. About this pairing, Wilson says, “It puts me in a context of the new and exciting, as well as the tried and true. All of our work is different from one another’s, though I think being seen together will reveal synergies that would never have been seen otherwise. It will allow for different readings of our work and different conversations that might never have occurred.”

Read the full review, written by Ioli Baltas, in (opens in a new window) Surface Magazine.