Brand New Gallery is proud to present Bad Chemistry, a solo exhibition by Danish artist Kasper Sonne.

At the crux of Sonne's practice is the exploration of how the viewers actively construct their own interpretation of art, and to a greater degree, how cultures create, proliferate, and share meaning. To this end, Sonne's works often invoke a dichotomy, if only to later have it annulled, made void. This approach provides Sonne's works with a lived and processual aesthetic, ever running through a Möbius strip of what the artist refers to as 'creation through destruction'. On view in the exhibition are three recent and distinct series of Sonne's oeuvre. His TXC paintings, his Untitled (acid rain) series, and a recent video Bad Chemistry, from which the exhibition draws its title. 

Extending the discourse of earlier generations of contemporary process art, like Linda Benglis or Gustav Metzger, Sonne's TXC paintings initially begin as bold vibrant monochromes. They're made with industrial paint that's applied smoothly with a roller, until a clean surface free of any painterly gesture has developed. Sonne follows the production of this minimal aesthetic by pouring chemical solvent onto the work, destroying the pristine results of his labor. Thereafter, the work begins to set, and through the commingling of the chemicals, the paint changes color and crystals form on the work's surface, completing a composition made through destruction.

 

Likewise, Sonne's Untitled (acid rain) works pit against each other the traditional notions of culture and nature. Collecting New York City's rain in small bottles and then placing them in aleatory fashion throughout the gallery, Sonne's small sculptures doubt the tenability of such a distinction, while also elegantly representing the violence inherent in many of today's natural phenomenon.

 

Sonne's recent Bad Chemistry video, perhaps the most abstract of works in the exhibition, relies on a series of non-representational images purely consisting of text, in order to create an imagined space where the viewer is encouraged to reflect on how language shapes how we distinguish between experience and meaning. 

 

Kasper Sonne (b. 1974 in Copenhagen, DK) lives and works in New York.

Sonne received his BA from The Royal Danish Academy of Fine Arts in Copenhagen, in 2000.

Sonne's works have been exhibited throughout Europe and North America. Selected solo exhibitions include On Destruction and Decoration (2014) at Galerie Oliver Robert in Paris; Zero Emotional Content (2013) at The Hole in New York, US; All Their Lies Art True (2013) at Henningson Gallery in Copenhagen, DK; All Information Is Subject To Change (2013) at SALTS in Basel, CH. Sonne's works have also been included in numerous curated group exhibitions, including Tectonic (2013) (curated by Simon Sakhai and Aya Mousavi) at the Moving Museum in Dubai, UAE; The Dark Cube (2012) (curated by Francesca Gavin) at Palais de Tokyo in Paris, FR; Each Memory Recalled Must Do Some Violence To Its Origin (2012) (curated by Aaron Moulton).

Upcoming exhibitions: New Territory (solo show) at West in Den Haag, NL; Bikuben at Utah Museum of Contemporary Art, Salt Lake City, US.