Opening reception for the artist: Saturday, June 14th, from 6 to 8 pm


Gagosian Gallery is pleased to announce circus, an exhibition of new sculptures by Joel Morrison. This is the artist's first solo exhibition with the gallery.

Joel Morrison explores the entombment of found objects in lustrous fiberglass and highly polished stainless steel. Sealed in these skins, everyday objects bulge out of their molds, creating a landscape of unnatural peaks and unidentifiable protrusions that result in fluid, organic forms. In other works, the objects become more overt to reveal the sculpture's internal structure, creating unlikely and provocative figures in which the sum of the parts become something completely new, outrageous, and arresting.

circus presents new works that range from large to intimate scale, as well as two works previously exhibited at the Orange County Museum and the UCLA Hammer Museum. Morrison begins with discarded objects such as plastic bottles that he then wraps in layers of tape and foam, casting them in stainless steel and fiberglass, a gesture that transforms these transitory materials into more permanent structures. He demonstrates his technical ability to manipulate his chosen objects with works that range from plays on Greek sculpture to grotesque forms spewing out of what appear to be their insides. Morrison's assemblages evoke art-historical precedents from Christo and Jeff Koons to formalist innovations by modernist sculptors including Constantin Brancusi and Henry Moore.

Joel Morrison was born in Seattle in 1976. He received a BA at Central Washington University and an MFA in sculpture at the Claremont Graduate University. His work has been exhibited internationally and is included in numerous public and private collections worldwide. Recently, his work was featured in Thing at the UCLA Hammer Museum (2005), and at the California Biennial at the Orange County Museum of Art (2006). He lives and works in Los Angeles.

A fully illustrated catalogue with essays by Rainer Crone and Aimee Chang accompanies this exhibition.

For more information, please contact the gallery.