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A Hyperrealistic Sculptor Finds Freedom in a Fragmented Exhibition

Artist Daniel Firman finds curatorial freedom in the mission of one Turkish gallery.
Nasutamanus, 2012, Fiberglass, polymer, 230 x 528 x 123 cm. All images courtesy of the artist and The Pill.

The paradoxical arrangement of New York-based artist Daniel Firman’s hyperrealistic cast sculptures puts the viewer in a sensory limbo that brings the flat surrealism of film and literature into the third dimension. In The Fragment Dimension, Firman’s solo exhibition at The Pill Contemporary Art Gallery in Turkey, the vivid detail of his sculptures clashes with the absurdity of their presentation.

According to the gallery, artists that present their work at The Pill are granted the freedom to customize and reshape the space in which their work is shown. Firman took the open layout of the gallery’s new venue, an old generator factory in the Balat district of Istanbul, and sectioned it off into separate rooms, carving out a calculated route for visitors in order to control the manner and order in which they receive his work. The gallery writes that the design of each room is dictated by the relationships made between the different sections of work, even though, materially speaking, there is no overt correlation between the sculptures room to room.

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When examined as a single body of work, the fractured presentation of the show provides the viewer with what the gallery calls a “broad spectrum of his practice.” This dissection of form thus forces the viewer to call into question their perception of what reality is and what it means to be present.

Check out some snapshots of the show below:

If You See Something Say Something, 2015m Neon / Neon, 706 x 28 x 4 cm

The show is on display at The Pill until April 24th, 2016. Click here to learn more about the exhibition, and here to visit Daniel Firman's website.

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