Established Gallery is pleased to announce Strange Loops, a solo show featuring the work of Stuart Lantry and the gallery’s inaugural exhibition with its new Director, Johnny Thornton. Curated by Established Gallery owner Greg Griffith and Johnny Thornton, Strange Loops features Stuart Lantry’s kinetic sculptures which function as feedback loops unto themselves that explore issues of form, movement, and the embodiment of the human experience.
Established Gallery will host an opening reception on September 7, 2019 at 75 6th Ave. Brooklyn, NY 11217 from 7 to 10 p.m.
Stuart Lantry creates imaginatively complex kinetic sculptures which function as whimsical machines. These wacky devices have an array of working mechanical parts and sculptural elements that move towards a prosaic end-goal; such as cyclically moving parts which turn a light on and off. The title of the exhibition is drawn from the novel “I Am a Strange Loop” by Douglas Hofstadter, which explores how the properties of self-referential systems can be used to describe the unique behavior of conscious minds. According to the author, “In the end, we are self-perceiving, self-inventing, locked-in mirages that are little miracles of self-reference.”
The mechanical basis of Stuart Lantry’s sculptures explores the notion of feedback loops. Feedback loops occur when the outputs of a system are routed back as inputs as part of a chain of cause-and-effect that form a continuous circuit. This concept is reflected in Lantry’s sculptural work, “Lamp with 16 Fingers, 8 Feathers and a Foot.” The work is composed of steel, plastic, aluminum, feathers, and motors, featuring sculptural casts of three hands, a foot, a finger and a functioning lamp. Once the kinetic sculpture is activated the limbs move independently of one another and the lamp turns on and off while emitting a red light. The seemingly random pattern of movement is in fact cyclical: Stuart Lantry’s kinetic sculptures are feedback loops unto themselves.
Stuart Lantry’s sculptural machines are are purposelessly complicated, contradictory and self-referential. They contain mechanical parts, human body parts and at first glance, appear to move randomly. His body of work explores the tenuous connections between internal feedback loops of thoughts and emotions juxtaposed with the external daily routines that construct human experience.
About the Artist
Stuart Lantry makes sculptures, drawings and videos that offer absurd meditations on how we create meaning from our everyday life. Lantry received his MFA in Painting from the Rhode Island School of Design in 2016, and his BA magna cum laude with high honors in Studio Art from Dartmouth College in 2012. His work has been shown across the U.S. with exhibitions in New York City, Los Angeles, Philadelphia, Providence and New Hampshire. Stuart currently lives and works in Philadelphia, PA.
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