Sara Kay Gallery Presents Joseph La Piana: Tension Between
On view from April 3, 2018
Sara Kay Gallery is pleased to present Tension Between, a solo exhibition by Joseph La Piana, on view from April 3 to May 19, 2018. The exhibition will present a site-specific installation and works on paper from the artist’s Tension series, including various relief drawings on watercolor paper, vellum and chipboard.
Constructed of latex bands saturated in talc powder, La Piana’s Tension installations push the capabilities of static materials by testing its tensile strength and expandability. In 2015 the artist constructed a large-scale site-specific installation within an industrial warehouse in Red Hook that utilized 11,000 feet of yellow latex stretched back and forth across the space’s concrete structural pillars. La Piana further activated the space with an audio file of the latex bands snapping. “The first Tension relief painting that I did clearly informed me of the capacity of the material, as it snapped with such kinetic force that it sent me to the emergency room. The audio component of the 2015 installation was meant to honor that force and remind the viewer that the installation is active, and the material is being stretched to the edge of breaking point,” said the artist.