Laurent Millet Exhibit Shows at Robert Mann Gallery, 5/13

Robert Mann Gallery in New York City will house the new Laurent Millet exhibit, The Last Days of Immanuel Kant, from May 13 through July 9, 2010.

Developing out of his series Les Zozios, exhibited at Robert Mann Gallery in 2005, the works in The Last Days of Immanuel Kant are ephemeral sculptural tableaux made only to be photographed. Millet has often explored the uncanny effect of translating objects to images, at times playing on the two dimensional surface of the photographic image and its capacity to render realistic spatial depths. His studio serves as both playground and workshop - a place of aesthetic and philosophical investigation.

Millet's images revel in the deceptions and revelations of sculptural form. But rather than emphasizing the material weight of his constructions, the dominant effect is of light and color intervening in the specific spaces of their construction. The sheer white walls, floor, and furniture of the archetypal studio create a sort of depthless blank slate for explosions of color (or alternatively a nearly desaturated achromaticity). Recalling Dan Flavin's fluorescent light tube installations or Calder's wire constructions, Millet's ephemeral forms interrogate the particulars of the space they occupy. Other works in the exhibition continue this interest in spatial illusionism and rendering of architectural space.  

The Last Days of Immanuel Kant is Laurent Millet's fourth solo exhibition at Robert Mann Gallery. In 2009 he presented a solo exhibition at the Rencontres d'Arles, and has been in recent shows at the Museum of Contemporary Photography, Chicago and the Museé Malraux, Le Havre. Millet's work is included in the collections of the Los Angeles County Museum of Art, the Art Institute of Chicago, the San Francisco Museum of Modern Art, and the Bibliothèque Nationale de France. Born in 1968, he lives in Rochefort, France.

Robert Mann Gallery is located at 210 Eleventh Avenue, New York NY 10001 (between 24th & 25th Streets) Hours are Tuesday-Saturday 11am-6pm.  For more information visit robertmann.com or call (212) 989-7600.