Sherrie Levine and Joost van Oss’s first collaborative exhibition in New York will be on view at the Paula Cooper Gallery from 23 October through 4 December, 1999. To be presented in the main gallery, this exhibition will consist of an installation of two sculptures inspired by Dutch architect and designer Gerrit Rietveld — Berlin Chair (1923) and End Table (1923).

The Paula Cooper installation marks the third in a series of collaborative sculpture exhibitions, as well as Sherrie Levine’s first New York exhibition since 1994. Each sculpture consists of a set of 24 steel units. Arranged in a grid, the formation of these sculptures recalls the programmatic dispersal of 54 vertical cedar units in Carl Andre’s Flanders Field (1978) and Donald Judd’s large-scale floor pieces.

Gerrit Rietveld’s architecture and furniture designs reflect the neoplasticism of the De Stijl group in the 1920s and 1930s, most notably in the scheme for his Rietveld Schröder House (1924). Characterized by planar, asymmetrical configurations, his utilitarian chairs, tables and interior decoration integrated rational forms with the ideals of standardized mass production.

Sherrie Levine’s artistic appropriations over the past two decades have questioned traditional conceptions of originality and authorship, examining works by Edward Weston, Marcel Duchamp and Constantin Brancusi, among others. She has exhibited nationally and internationally, and her work may be found in the collections of The Museum of Modern Art, The Whitney Museum of American Art, and The Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York.

Born in the Netherlands, Joost van Oss completed a residency at the Chinati Foundation in Marfa, Texas, in 1994. His work is included in the collections of The Stedelijk Van Abbemuseum, Eindhoven, and The Haags Gemeentemuseum, The Hague, The Netherlands.

The artists, who met in Galisteo, New Mexico in 1997, realized their first collaborative prototype in 1998. Fabricated and installed in a group of 24, this rolled steel sculpture was exhibited at the Musée d’Art Moderne et Contemporain in Geneva, Switzerland during the summer of 1999 following an exhibition at Jablonka Galerie in Cologne, Germany.

An illustrated catalogue, with an essay by Catherine Ingraham, will be published in conjunction with the exhibition.

This exhibition was made possible with the generous support of the Mondriaan Foundation, Amsterdam, for the advancement of the visual arts, design and museums.

For more information, please contact the gallery: (212) 255-1105 or
info@paulacoopergallery.com