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Greater New York | Culture | Fine Art
PAUL VILLINSKI · PASSAGE
By Lance Esplund
Artistic obsession - with a particular subject, motif, material or tradition - is often an artist's primary motivator. Some artworks mask or sublimate impulses; others, such as the homegrown sculptures of Paul Villinski, give personal passions full rein.
Mr Villinski, a glider pilot and record collector, explores themes from his life, including music and flight; and recycled materials, such as audio paraphernalia, musical instruments, discarded wood and aluminum cans.
The butterfly - thousands of which he has individually fashioned and hand-cut from vinyl records and from flattened cans - is his principal subject. In the backroom of Morgan Lehman, dozens of aluminum butterflies, lyric and delicate, blackened by candle soot, emerge like a genie's smoke from out a cello and an electric guitar and spiral across gallery walls.
For the main gallery of this exhibition, Mr. Villinski has created another of his recurring objects, the wood glider. "Passage" (2011), made of refurbished materials, is suspended from the ceiling and has a wingspan of 33 feet. Surrounding the plane is a black swarm of 1,000 aluminum butterflies, which appear, in turns, to thwart and power the unmanned aircraft.
Overtly literal yet Hitchcockian, a nightmare and a metaphor for liberation, "Passage" succeeds more as craft than as sculpture. Embraced, however, as Mr. Villinski's fantastical obsession, it takes flight.
Click here to view the exhibition
PAUL VILLINSKI: PASSAGE | OPENS SEPTEMBER 8
September 8 - October 15, 2011
Reception: Thursday September 8, 6 - 8 pm
For press images and additional information, please contact the gallery.
Morgan Lehman
535 West 22nd Street
New York, NY 10011
Gallery Hours:
Tuesday - Saturday, 10am - 6pm
email: art@morganlehmangallery.com
phone: 212.268.6699 fax: 212.268.6766
web: www.morganlehmangallery.com
• Emergency Response Studio
Festival of Ideas for the New City
"Over eighty independent projects, exhibitions, and performances, which expand on the Festival’s themes, will open at multiple festival partner venues Downtown, activating a broad geographic area. Projects include a solar powered mobile art studio; artist-commissioned roll-down, metal storefront gates; projections of poems in endangered languages on Lower East Side buildings; a prototype of an urban campground; a marathon event where architects will present their ideas about reconfiguring public space in a rapid fire format; an exhibit exploring the political, economic and social relevance of preservation and its role in architectural thinking; and a wide range of other activities exploring ideas for the future. These events will open Saturday evening, May 7, and Sunday, May 8."
The Wall Street Journal
A boutique chain co-founder scores his Hamptons home three years after his first tour
"Most walls in the home are bare; Mr. Keledjian says he is still choosing artwork. One exception is a wall of the 35-foot-long living room, where dozens of soot-dirtied butterflies fashioned from beer cans are stationed—an installation by the artist Paul Villinski that Mr. Keledjian bought with the house."
Villinski recently created a large butterfly installation for the hit Warner Brothers TV show “Gossip Girl”, which will be featured throughout the upcoming Season 4. The piece, comprised of more than 200 smoke-black butterflies, is installed over the bed in lead character Serena’s (played by Blake Lively) room. The set will be “revealed” during the broadcast Monday, Sept 27, 2010.
Black butterflies alight on the set of "Gossip Girl"
Morgan Lehman Gallery
Morgan Lehman Gallery, which has represented Villinski since opening its doors in 2002, has moved into beautiful and spacious new quarters at 535 West 22nd Street in New York City. September’s inaugural group show in the new space is called “Opening Ceremony”. The large space will allow Villinski to create a complex, large-scale, single-object exhibition for his next solo show with the gallery, slated for September 2011.
morganlehmangallery.com
Miami International Airport
“Air Chair”, a large-scale sculpture which transforms a wheelchair into a flying machine, has been acquired by the Miami International Airport for the permanent collection. The sculpture, which has working controls and a wingspan of 19’ was the subject of a single-object exhibition at the Hillwood Museum of Art in 2007. Installation of “Air Chair” is expected during the Fall of 2010, when it will be suspended in the airport terminal.
Women’s and Children’s Hospital
Villinski has been commissioned to create his largest-ever butterfly installation for a new University of Michigan Hospital System Women’s and Children’s Hospital in Ann Arbor, MI. The new hospital is nearing completion and the site-specific installation is planned for Summer 2011. The artwork will consist of 450 butterfly elements with compositions located at the reception desk, and in the central atrium lobby area. Aluminum cans from which the butterflies will be made are being collected and donated by the workers constructing the building.
Virginia Museum or Art
“Hard Lesson (Second Iteration)” was recently acquired by the Virginia Museum of Fine Art, in Richmond, VA. The sculpture was purchased by Bill and Pam Royall during Morgan Lehman Gallery’s solo presentation of Villinski’s work at the Pulse Miami Art Fair in December, 2009, and very generously donated to the museum’s permanent collection.
Art Bogota
Morgan Lehman Gallery will be exhibiting in the Art Bogota fair, to be held October 21- 26, 2010. The gallery will exhibit four artists, including two pieces by Villinski.
Gallery of Contemporary Art at Sacred Heart University
“Diaspora,” a large scale installation of birds made from Villinski’s collection of vinyl LP records will be included in “Contemporary Souvenirs” at The Gallery of Contemporary Art at Sacred Heart University in Fairfield, CT, January 23, - March 2, 2011. www.sacredheart.edu. The piece was originally shown in “Never Can Say Goodbye,” a sprawling group show at the former Tower Records store on Broadway in Manhattan, organized by No Longer Empty. www.nolongerempty.org
NYC Parks and Recreation Facility
Villinski was selected by the NYC Percent For Art Program to create a major public work for “Ocean Breeze,” a new Parks and Recreation indoor Track and Field facility to be constructed on the shore in Staten Island. The project has evolved over two years, with a current proposal to suspend a large “pedal-powered flying machine” in the space. Villinski hopes to place a bicycle generator in a community workout room so that unsuspecting exercisers will unwittingly power-up the sculpture, causing its propellers to turn.
US Biennial Edition
Villinski has just completed work on an edition of sculptures to be offered to benefit US Biennial, Inc., organizers of the highly regarded “Prospect .1 New Orleans” Biennial exhibition. Director/Curator Dan Cameron invited Villinski to create the edition of 20, each of which consists of three birds, made from vinyl LP records from Cameron and Villinski’s personal collections, and housed in a box made from album covers. The editions will be offered for sale soon by US Biennial.
www.prospectneworleans.org
Jonathan Ferrara Gallery Exhibition
A solo show entitled “Glidepath” featuring eight new works, was held at the Jonathan Ferrara Gallery in New Orleans, during April and May, 2010. Critic D. Eric Bookhardt concluded his review saying: “By giving new life to old objects made from substances mined from the earth, Villinski symbolically coaxes the spirit from dense, discarded matter.”
View the exhibition here: jonathanferraragallery.com
Recent Commissions
Recent commissions include a site-specific installation for a private collector in London; an installation in the Chicago offices of an investment firm; two installations in private residences in Northern California; an installation for the Chicago “Next” art fair with Morgan Lehman Gallery; and an installation for a private collector in Soho, New York. Upcoming installations include a piece for Second Line Stages, a new film-making studio in New Orleans, and pieces for two private collectors in Dallas, among others.