Tom Sachs — American Handmade Paintings — Thaddaeus Ropac Marais Gallery — Exhibition — Slash Paris

Past: March 29 → May 3, 2014

Galerie Thaddaeus Ropac announce Tom Sachs’s seventh solo exhibition in the Marais gallery titled, American Handmade Paintings. The choice of this title is anchored in specific aspects that are dear to Sachs’s creative universe; his use of the American landscape as iconography and his endeavor to draw our attention to the way the works are made. Traces and marks of the handicraft are voluntarily left visible and become an integral part of the work.

This exhibition features mainly wall works highlighting two distinct techniques in Tom Sachs’s practice: pyrography and marquetry. By using fire as the sole drawing tool, pyrography permits to create a work without any additional material, while the craft of marquetry is a complex assembly of pre-painted, inlaid elements.

Consumerism, corporate identity, cultural imperialism, technological progress, identity and the loss of it, the relation of survival and destruction are all at the heart of Tom Sachs’s work.

Tom Sachs, McDonald’s, 2013 Synthetic polymer paint and hardware on plywood — 121.9 × 91.4 cm Courtesy of the artist & Galerie Thaddaeus Ropac

In this exhibition, Sachs’s meticulously handcrafted paintings depict such diverse topics as the Goodwill logo, a McDonald’s sign in Chinese, the famous Scotch tape package and the American flag; all modern icons that document successes and failures of the American experience and the ambiguities and contradictions inherent in its society and culture.