Download PDF (372 K)Hedge in collaboration with Friedman Benda Presents
Not Furniture : Forrest Myers
08 October through 08 November 2008
07 October – Opening, 6 to 8pm
"I'm a sculptor, and I use furniture as a venue, as an idea, a jumping off place to make sculpture." -Forrest Myers
Hedge, in collaboration with Friedman Benda in New York, presents an installation of dynamic new wire works by Forrest Myers, featuring his latest designs alongside significant career highlights that will occupy the entire gallery, on view at Hedge from October 8th to November 8th. The exhibition will premiere on October 7th, 6 to 8pm.
Forrest Myers was born in 1941 and raised in California where he studied at the San Francisco Art Institute before moving to New York in 1961. Myers quickly integrated into the city's vibrant artist community, becoming a founding member of the Park Place Gallery along with artists such as Mark di Suvero and Robert Grosvenor. The prominent cooperative gallery, shared by five sculptors and five painters, became a fundamental hub for the New York art scene.
During the 1960s Myers became a member of the Experiments in Art and Technology (E.A.T.) collective and collaborated with artists and scientists on many notable projects. In 1973 Myers' constructed one of his most famous sculptures, "The Wall," often referred to as the "Gateway to Soho." In 1979, Myers began showing with the historic Art et Industrie, the first American gallery to exhibit the work of such expressionistic European designers such as Ettore Sottsass and Ron Arad. In addition, his works are part of the permanent collection at the Museum of Modern Art in New York and the Chateau dus Fresne, Decorative Arts Museum in Montreal, Canada.
For more than 40 years, Myers' work has expanded the functional vocabulary of sculpture through his explorations with the inherent properties of metal and materiality. In his most recent body of work, Myers has drawn inspiration from the landscape of his Pennsylvania farm, producing new work rooted in his signature motif, but incorporating fresh forms and materials, a look that is more dense, wide, and free of limits. "For decades, Forrest Myers has been exploring the territory that compromises the no-man's land between design and sculpture, consistently forsaking a purist dedication to either in favor of a stubborn hybridity that ensured his excommunication from both" - Jenifer P. Borum, ARTFORUM
Bringing the Design = Art Movement to San Francisco, Hedge's Not Furniture exhibition series concentrates on Artists and Designers whose vision is pushing the definition of furniture design beyond its conventional perception, blurring the boundaries between art and design.