JOHN STEZAKER
September 11 - October 24, 2009

Richard Gray Gallery is pleased to announce an exhibition of new collage works by British artist John Stezaker. This is the artist's first exhibition in Chicago, and his first with the gallery. Additionally, on Wednesday, September 9 at 6 pm, the artist will give a public lecture at the School of the Art Institute of Chicago, 280 S. Columbus Drive. Details below.

Employing vintage photographs, old Hollywood film stills, travel postcards and other printed matter, Stezaker creates seductive and fascinating small-format collages that bear qualities of Surrealism, Dada, and found art. Indeed, in referring to the large compendium of images he has collected, Stezaker asserts that the images "find him", not the other way around. With surgical-like precision, Stezaker excises, overlays and conjoins distinct images to create new personalities and scenes. The visceral effects of Stezaker's handiwork vary significantly from work to work: sometimes harmonious or witty, sometimes perplexing, sometimes jarring or even monstrous.

John Stezaker at Richard Gray Gallery will feature 18 works drawn from many of the artist's series, including works from his "Marriage" series, in which two opposites are fused in a single bust portrait; "Tabula Rasa" collages, which, as the name implies, utilize a blank white rectangle to occlude information in a scene, inviting the viewer to supplement the narrative; and from the "Bridge" series, a rare collaged book sculpture, the first time such a work has ever been exhibited in the United States.

Stezaker's work is in the collections of the Museum of Modern Art, New York; the Rubell Family Collection, Miami; the Tate Collection, London and the Saatchi Collection, London, among others. He lives and works in London.