11.01 — 12.12.15
devening projects + editions is pleased to announce To Everyone, an exhibition of new collages and paper relief sculptures by Christopher Michlig.
To Everyone consists of a group of collages and paper sculptures that began as a series of black and white silk-screened halftone reproductions of images from a 1961 Andre Bloc exhibition catalog. Known as a sculptor as well as founding editor of Architecture Ajoud’hui, Bloc’s sculptural forms situate themselves mid-century somewhere between architecture and sculpture. Michlig unpacks this source imagery through repetition, overlapping and obfuscation, conflating multiple iterative collages and evolving idiosyncratic forms into three dimensional wall works. Michlig’s synthetic compositions and forms are the result of a series of head on collisions between three-dimensional plotting and two-dimensional restraint. Working as though in an intergenerational collaboration, Michlig operates on the constructivist notion that freedom can be attained only after ideas about the organization of solids have been completely smashed.
Michlig’s textures are generated from a 1990 Apple SE running Mac Paint, a bitmap–based graphics painting software program developed in 1984. These stock graphic textures are silk-screened onto poly-coated poster paper in a range of high gloss fluorescent inks, and Michlig deploys this printed matter as a primary material in both the collages and sculptures. Color and texture in these works unite the technical properties and perceptual differences among the various works.
Christopher Michlig makes work in a wide range of media, including collage, printmaking, sculpture and video. Referencing mid-century architectural source materials Michlig operates on the Constructivist-esque notion that freedom can be attained only after ideas about the organization of solids have been completely smashed. Michlig unpacks his collected source imagery through repetition, overlapping and obfuscation, conflating multiple iterative collages and evolving idiosyncratic forms into three dimensional wall works. Michlig’s synthetic compositions and forms are the result of a series of head on collisions between three-dimensional plotting and two-dimensional restraint. His work has been exhibited internationally, most recently in one-person exhibitions at Marine Contemporary, Los Angeles; VOLTA 8 Basel, Switzerland; Galleria Giuseppe Pero, Milan; and devening projects + editions, Chicago. His work has been featured and reviewed in a number of publications. Michlig received an MFA in Sculpture from Art Center College of Design, Pasadena, California in 2007. Upcoming exhibitions include To Everyone at devening projects + editions, Chicago, IL, and Ex-Pictures at FISK, Portland OR.
