Alex Israel

Javier Peres is pleased to present Los Angeles based American artist Alex Israel's first European solo exhibition.

 

For the first time in Europe, Israel is exhibiting Property, his ongoing series of site-specific, temporary sculptural installations. The title Property refers to the Hollywood studio prop department. For Property, 2011, at Peres Projects' Kreuzberg gallery, Israel has amassed a collection of sculptures culled from the thousands of readymade props available for rent at prop houses in Berlin and at the Babelsberg movie studio.

 

In the gallery, the props assume the role of sculpture: physical art objects to be experienced without the mediating barrier of the lens. At the exhibition's close, Property will be dispersed: the rented props will return to their original sources and to being circulated through various on-camera jobs.

 

Presented for the first time in conjunction with Property are Israel's As It Lays flats. Made on the Warner Brothers Studio backlot in Burbank, California, the stucco-coated flats are shaped like the door and window-frames of Golden Age Hollywood Spanish revival style homes. The As It Lays flats hang in the gallery to envelop and frame Property. Similar flats are used as set pieces in Israel's video-portrait webseries: As It Lays (currently in production in Los Angeles and scheduled to premier in 2012).

 

Alex Israel's work has recently been included in the 2010 California Biennial, at the Orange County Museum of Art, and in New York as part of the monumental group exhibition Greater LA.

 

Israel is the founder of Freeway Eyewear, a Los Angeles-inspired sunglass brand. On the occasion of the exhibition and in collaboration with Peres Projects, a special edition sunglass style, Autobahn by Freeway, has been produced in a limited run of one hundred pairs, which can be purchased from No.74. in Berlin or directly though the Peres Projects online store.

 

Alex Israel was born in Los Angeles, CA in 1982. He received his BA from Yale University in 2003, and his MFA from USC's Roski School of Fine Art in 2010.

 

The exhibition is on at Peres Projects, (Schlesische Strasse 26, Kreuzberg) through November 5, 2011. Opening hours are Tuesday through Saturday, 11am – 6pm and by appointment.