Blake Rayne: Shade Subscription

Gisela Capitain and Friedrich Petzel are pleased to announce the first solo exhibition by Blake Rayne at Capitain Petzel and the artist‘s first exhibition in Berlin. Rayne’s work has been shown in several solo shows in New York, Miami, Paris and London since 1996 and in various group exhibitions, most recently at the Kunsthall Bergen, Norway, at The Kitchen, New York and at the Langen Foundation, Neuss.

Rayne’s work investigates abstract painting in its suspension, concurrently balancing on the verge of chromatic reduction and the ready-made. In the exhibition in Berlin, he has interacted with and related to the space, adding to the works and amending them in situ, as he establishes stages and layers in both them and in the gallery. Elements are added, reconfigured and sometimes subtracted as a sequence of scenarios, both spatial and mental. This approach, with an emphasis on the stratifications of context and perception of the art work, is typical for Rayne’s practice.

The works and their installation in this exhibition attempt to examine the contradictions between modernist and contextual practices. Rayne is interested in exaggerating these contradictions and expanding the gaps which are generally paved-over. The exhibition is thematically arranged, with dividing walls and works laid out to respond both to each other and to issues, such as the relationship between paintings and books and the discursive relations between individuals. Rayne sees this as a contribution to a destabilisation of the assumed status quo in theories of art practice.