George Herms EMERGIO

With George Herms’ solo exhibition EMERGIO, the artist realizes a long-standing ambition to see his customarily small-scale paper collages blown-up to a magnified proportion. The increased dimension of this new work exemplifies his discriminate control of the medium and furthers the potency of its abstract imagery.

With ten large pieces on wood panels, Herms changes the semblance of his source material (page clippings of discarded women’s fashion magazines), which he normally collages directly at scale. Here, as seen with ZEITGEIST BANDWAGON, 2013, he expands the content beyond its original scope by printing enlargements of the cutout sections, resulting in amplified and enigmatic versions of his amorphic, two-dimensional inventions.

In addition to this new series, Herms will include several sculptures that span from 1980 until now. These three-dimensional pieces highlight the course of his practice, as they also inform the quantum transitions from sculptural to collapsed, bridged by his work. EMERGIO reveals the progression of the artist‘s formative dialogue, his prolific career, and why he continues to influence contemporary artists, today.

Roots in abstract expressionism

the sculptor with scissors and glue

works with found images.

Enlarge and dance, with mirror and smoke

the jazz rhythms of a Bach fugue

begin to appear.

EMERGIO

– George Herms, June 3, 2013