Anna Szprynger

"THE EDGE"

October 05, 2019 to October 30, 2019
Opening reception October 11, 2019, 6-8PM

Click for more information on Anna Szprynger

Anna Szprynger

The Edge

Opening Reception: Friday, October 11, 6-8 PM

October 5 - October 30, 2019

Slag Gallery is pleased to present The Edge showcasing recent paintings by the Polish artist Anna Szprynger. This will be Szprynger’s first exhibition with the gallery and the artist’s first solo show in the United States.

Szprynger’s resolutely abstract works on view establish a dialogue with the history of abstraction only to challenge some of its main premises. Using a dark color palette—which often verges on the monochrome—the artist assiduously fills each of her canvases with a multitude of thin lines to striking optical effects. The resulting surfaces, despite their inherent two-dimensionality, appear textural.

Challenging the dominant modernist narrative of pictorial flatness, Szprynger does not discard painterly illusionism, while her abstract compositions elicit haptic engagement and prompt the spectator to undertake the quixotic effort of uncovering what lies beneath. These fictive spaces which Szprynger creates—and which the viewer can but attempt to enter—are filled with paradoxes, appearing at once meditative and frustrating, organic and inanimate, fixed and elusive.

While Szprynger’s non-objective work forges its own idiosyncratic path, the artist’s multifaceted practice remains in a constant dialogue with its art historical past. Szprynger’s commitment to non-objectivity situates her painting in the long-standing tradition of Polish abstract painting—from Henryk Stażewski’s efforts to establish a new constructivist vocabulary during the interwar period to Wojciech Fangor’s attempts to thrust color into the three-dimensional space in the aftermath of 1956 cultural thaw. Moreover, the artist’s technique, characterized by a laborious process of line application, goes beyond the artistic tradition of her home country, finding a precedent in the oeuvre of the American abstract painter, Agnes Martin, whose grid-like structure Szprynger productively disrupts.

***

NOTES TO EDITORS:

About the artist, Anna Szprynger

Born in Warsaw, Poland in 1982, Szprynger studied graphic arts and painting at the College of Fine Arts in Kazimierz Dolny and at the Maria Curie Skłodowska University in Lublin. In 2014, she was awarded a Ph.D. in Painting from the Academy of Fine Arts in Warsaw, where she worked under Prof. Dorota Grynczel.  Szprynger has twentyone individual exhibitions to her name, including at Galerie Lindner Wien (2017), National Museum in Gdansk (2014), Galeria EL in Elbląg (2014), the State Art Gallery in Sopot (2012). She has taken part in more than forty collective exhibitions. In 2013, she won the Prix Marin at the Salon Réalités Nouvelles in Paris and the 2014 Arteon Award.

About Slag Gallery

Slag Gallery is committed to present work by emerging artists and to support and sustainably nourish their careers.  With this at its’ core, the gallery’s efforts concentrate on local and international exposure of works by artists in its’ roster, by providing the cultural exchange with art institutions and organizations, publishing catalogues, collaborating with other galleries, and participating in Art Fairs.

The artists of Slag Gallery have been included in a number of internationally recognized exhibitions, such as the Venice Biennale (2001), the Istanbul Biennale (2011), Prague Biennial (2011), along with exhibitions at museums and institutions such as PS1 in New York; The Drawing Center, NY; Brooklyn Museum, NY; Marina Abramović Institute, San Francisco; Kunsthalle Budapest (Mucsarnok); MODEM Modern and Contemporary Art Center, Debrecen; National Museum of Contemporary Art, Bucharest; MKM Museum Kuppersmühle, Duisburg; Kultur Fabrik, Luxembourg; Brukental Museum, Sibiu; The Museum of New Art, Detroit; NJMoCA; Herzliya Museum of Contemporary Art, Israel; Queens Museum of Art, NY; Birmingham Museum of Art: Boulder MoCA; the Islip Museum of Art, NY; Marfa Contemporary, TX; Kunsthaus Worms, GE; Kunstverein Viernheim, GE.

Slag Gallery was inaugurated in June 2008 in Chelsea, NY, and in 2012 the gallery moved to Bushwick.

 

Artist: Anna Szprynger

Title: The Edge

Address: Slag Gallery, 56 Bogart Street, Brooklyn, NY 11206

Website: www.slaggallery.com

Dates: October 5 - October 30, 2019

Opening Hours: Thursday - Sunday 1-6PM

Monday - Wednesday by appointment

Admission: Free

Facebook: slaggallery

Instagram: slaggallery

 

For press information and images please contact:

Irina Protopopescu at Slag Gallery

Tel: +1 212-967-9818

Email: irina@slaggallery.com

Additional images and information can be found on the artist's pages:

Anna Szprynger