P.S.1 Contemporary Art Center presents recent work by American artist Vincent Szarek (b. 1973). Sculptures in this exhibition address Szarek’s fascination with West Coast cultural iconography such as "low rider" cars and surfboards.
Szarek was introduced to car culture while working in an automotive body shop in Rhode Island. In this environment, Szarek learned to employ materials and processes associated with fabricating cars and surfboards. His exposure to this industrial methodology “attracted [him] to obsessive and clean work, and the technical aspects of making things." Starting with a small model or drawing, Szarek creates labor-intensive digital models and fiberglass and urethane molds. He then hand glazes his work and applies multiple codes of electric buffing to arrive at abstracted sculptural forms.
Szarek anchors his work in the visual vocabulary of the automobile, both a symbol of creative technical innovation and an object designed for movement. While his sculptures seem to be in motion, his three-dimensional paintings refer to the persistent motion of the present.
Vincent Szarek is organized by P.S.1 Director, Alanna Heiss and P.S.1 Chief Curator, Klaus Biesenbach.