ROBERT SCHATZ | The Wisdom of Whimsy | MELANIE’S OFFICE
January 7 - February 9, 2024
Manipulating humble materials intuitively and without any preconceived composition, I create enigmatic structures that perform like three-dimensional drawings moving through space in organic yet architectural ways. They serve, in their own fashion, as objects of poetry and meditation. Partnering with their cast shadows, they create a dance of form and non-form, evoking thoughts of Plato’s cave. With philosophical roots in Surrealism and Minimalism, as well as traditional Chinese and Japanese art, this work has been informed by diverse references. These include urban graffiti, nautical rigging, folk toys, Chinese scholar stones, Melanesian sailing charts, shamanistic totems, and Nature. The materials, forms and modest scale of these pieces evoke intimacy, tenderness, playfulness -- aspects of our humanity that our contemporary society, with its emphasis on technology, competition and economic activity, tends to ignore. As with all my work, these pieces also suggest a kind of Dionysian delight in the manifestations of the world and in our own be-ing.
Rooted in the aesthetics and philosophies of the New York and Northwest Schools as well as Asian art, Robert Schatz maintains a diverse practice that explores the sensuality of gesture and line and the dynamism of pictorial and sculptural space. Notably, his work has been exhibited with that of Eva Hesse, Sol Lewitt, Robert Mangold, François Morellet, and Fred Sandback, while curator Jonathan Frederick Walz has also noted affinities with Richard Tuttle and Alexander Calder. Museum director Thomas Sokolowski described his work as "lush skeins of finely measured and almost mathematically paced staves of pure feeling." And the Paris-based poet Nina Zivancevic has written that his work “attests to the futility of our attempts to tame the wild and unpredictable.”
Robert Schatz has exhibited internationally over the past three decades. Museum venues have included the Sheldon Museum of Art (Lincoln, NE), Sofia City Art Gallery (Sofia, Bulgaria), Landesmuseum Oberösterreich (Linz, Austria), and the Derby Museum (Derby, UK). Gallery and project venues have included Jason McCoy Gallery, TenBerke, The Phatory LLC, The Painting Center, and Nicholas Davies Gallery (all New York), Curious Matter and Art House (Jersey City), Stirner Modern Gallery (Easton, PA), The Institute For American Art (Portland, ME), The Green Door Gallery and Pluto Gallery (Brooklyn), Propeller Centre for the Visual Arts (Toronto), Exile (Berlin), Galerie Pixi (Paris), and the South London Gallery (London). University and college venues have included New York University, Southern Methodist University, the University of Scranton, Cedar Crest College, Marymount Manhattan College, and the University of Strathclyde (Glasgow). His works are in the collections of the Harvard Art Museums, the Meadows Museum, the Sheldon Museum, and the US State Department, among others, as well as in many private collections in the United States, Canada, and Europe.