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Pierogi is delighted
to present new work by Michael Schall. Schall’s large-scale graphite
works on paper describe imagined intersections between majestic natural
environments and man-made interventions. In his invented worlds the rippling
stone surface of a grand butte suddenly ends and continues as a grid-like,
metallic structure. In another drawing, cables and complex systems of
pipes undergird and conjoin mountain plateaus. Schall notes
I draw imagined landscapes where instruments of human industry attempt
to somehow alter the surface of the earth. Shown in various stages of
construction and decay, these illogical human projects stem from my interest
in the ways cities sprawl, in the location of landfills and power plants,
in the course of events that led to the abandonment of drive-in movies.
...The images depicted in my drawings are of worlds where both the futility
and the exhilarating potential of our grand constructions are celebrated
with equal fervor. (Schall, 2007)
Schall’s works have been compared to “an emerging class of
notable contemporaries. Paul Noble, Robyn O’Neil, and David Thorpe
come to mind. ... Schall’s worlds, like others in this realm, have
the luxury of finding frontiers and describing cosmologies within a self-defined
dimension that is immune from extra-wordly exigencies, and this along
with Schall’s individual sensibility makes his illogical world one
worth visiting.” (Shane McAdams, The Brooklyn Rail, February
2006)
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