10,483,200 Minutes

JANUARY 29 · MAY 23, 2010

Eric and Heather ChanSchatz will present paintings, sculptures, works on paper, and books which, in their words, “inhabit the architecture and psychology of the social condition.” Resulting from their engagements with individuals, communities and institutions, ChanSchatz have created artworks that explore communal relationships, structures of individuality, and the mapping of socio-political networks. Such interactions typically span several years to reach completion and have taken place internationally from New York to Iraq. The works included at MCA Denver present projects at different stages of progress providing our audiences with a unique view into, and an opportunity to participate with, the many layers of ChanSchatz’s conceptual and provocative practice.

The work of New York-based Eric and Heather ChanSchatz (both born 1968) has been included in numerous museum and gallery exhibitions in the United States and Europe. Their next project will be a site-specific installation at the architectural landmark Lever House in New York City.

ChanSchatz’s exhibition is one of six exhibitions focused on the metaphysics of the human figure grouped under the title Looking for the Face I Had Before the World Was Made. The artists include: Michaël Borremans, Samuel Beckett, Eric & Heather ChanSchatz, Lorraine O’Grady, A. G. Rizzoli and William Stockman. Each of the artists explores how depicting the human figure can offer something more consequential than a simple catalogue of physical features. Each work in the exhibition tells a human story while de-emphasizing the likeness of any particular person. Using a wide variety of styles, the artists are joined by an interest in creating a sense of a phenomenon deeper than the surface image, capturing a presence prior to the appearance of the fully formed individual. The line “Looking for the face I had before the world was made,” is a quote from the late poet and dramatist, William Butler Yeats, from his poem “A Woman Young and Old.” It can be understood as either a statement of faith or a philosophical riddle related to the formation of the self.

Looking for the Face I Had Before the World Was Made opens January 29, 2009 at the Museum of Contemporary Art Denver. The exhibition is sponsored in part by Amber & Michael Fries, Emily Sinclair & Jay Kenney, and MCA Denver’s Director’s Vision Society.

Image: Eric and Heather ChanSchatz, Monochromes (SCU.020) (detail), 2009. © Eric and Heather ChanSchatz.