Andrew Kreps Gallery is pleased to announce Four Fuck Sakes, an exhibition of new works by Michael Dean at 394 Broadway.
Michael Dean’s idiosyncratic work draws on language in its wildest sense. Often based on his own writing, Dean broadens what we understand to be the written word into a manifestation of semiotics and typographical abstractions—such as emoticons and logos that morph into three dimensional glyphs. Regularly deploying accessible materials, Dean draws out new language with which the forms themselves are at once a personal vernacular, and a physical configuration. The transitional movement from word-to-image-to-being becomes an amalgamation of symmetrical and physical intimacy.
Often using concrete and rebar, Dean’s materials bring with them their own associations with an urban landscape, and the haphazard accumulation of visual information that occurs with them. The resulting sculptures are also intrinsically tied to the human body, both through the imprinted marks of his hands, and their intimate scale, which is often analogous to Dean’s own body as he grapples with material in the studio. Brought together, Dean looks towards the countless ways, both physical and mental, through which we experience language, as well as the endless potential for revision and reinterpretation.
Michael Dean lives and works in London. Past solo exhibitions include Smittens For Smoticons, Goswell Road, Paris, France (2022), Unfuckingtitled at CC Strombeek in Flanders, Belgium (2021), Tu texto aquí at Museo Tamayo in Mexico City, (2019), Michael Dean: Laughing for Crying at Lismore Castle Arts in Lismore, Ireland (2019), Having you on at BALTIC Centre for Contemporary Art in Gateshead (2018), Teaxths and Angeruage at Portikus in Frankfurt, Germany (2017), Sic Glyphs at South London Gallery, London (2016), and Lost True Leaves at Nasher Sculpture Center in Dallas (2016). Dean was nominated for the Turner Prize in 2016 and for the Hepworth Prize in 2018. In 2017, Dean participated at Skulptur Projekt Münster. His works are featured in significant public collections, including Tate, London; Henry Moore Foundation, Hertfordshire; Walker Art Center, Minneapolis; S.M.A.K. Gent; Arts Council Collection, London; Kadist Art Foundation, Paris; The Hepworth Wakefield, Wakefield; and Nasher Sculpture Center, Dallas.
