Alexandre Arrechea’s Chrysler, 2012–2013, is part of the artist’s acclaimed NO LIMITS body of work, which centers around sculptural depictions of New York City’s most famous buildings. Arrechea adopted the forms of notable structures including the Flatiron Building, Empire State Building and, as in the present example, the Chrysler Building, and imbued these renditions with his idea of “elastic architecture”. The results were surreal examinations of structural composition in which the straight lines and rigidity commonly associated with architecture are forgone in favor of fluid and often eccentric curves. For Arrechea, this defiance of conventional tenets of architecture through instilled dynamism is a metaphor for the importance of adaptability within the human condition.
In the present example, the famed Art Deco crown and spire of the Chrysler Building rest atop a version of the skyscraper’s foundation contorted into several S-curves. Within the circular blue base, the structure curls upon itself, conjuring associations with coiled springs and garden hoses and injecting a premonition of potential energy into the work. The concept of perpetual motion within a seemingly static urban landscape reflect what Arrechea deems “constant negotiations with [one’s] surroundings,” that is inherent to both architecture and the human experience.i
Alexandre Arrechea, Install shot of No Limits, 2013. Image/Artwork: © Alexandre Arrechea During the spring of 2013, 10 of Arrechea’s elastic buildings were rendered in monumental scale along New York City’s Park Avenue in a collaborative exhibition between Magnan Metz Gallery, New York City’s Department of Parks & Recreation and The Fund for the Park Avenue Sculpture Committee. A concurrent exhibition at Magnan Metz featured several smaller iterations of the works, including the present lot. The sculptures exhibited during NO LIMITS, in the artist’s words, “confront dynamism vs static, the whole vs the fragment, control vs chaos, utopia vs reality."ii By mutating totems of economic and commercial strength into fantastical distortions, Arrechea poses a synecdochic challenge to the power dynamics and struggle for control intrinsic to modern life.
i Alexandre Arrechea, quoted in Jeff Edwards, "Unfreezing a World in Perpetual Motion. An Interview with Alexandre Arrechea," ARTPULSE Magazine, January 2, 2013, online.
ii Alexandre Arrechea, quoted in press release for his exhibition, NO LIMITS, 2013, online.
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Provenance
Magnan Metz Gallery, New York
Acquired from the above by the present ownerExhibited
New York, Magnan Metz Gallery, Alexandre Arrechea: NO LIMITS, March 1–June 9, 2013
Modern & Contemporary Art: Online Auction, New York
23 September - 3 October 2024
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