Ivy Haldeman and Douglas Rieger

The New Yorker, ArtForum

Helena Anrather is pleased to present This Liquid Life, a two-person exhibition of new work by Ivy Haldeman and Douglas Rieger. The show, comprised of large and small paintings by Haldeman and various free-standing and tabletop sculptures made of wood and silicone by Rieger, will be on view through June 17th, 2018.

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The phrase adopted as the show’s title is from the poetry of Daniel Feinberg, a contemporary poet whose work explores the fluidity of bodily boundaries and the fuzzy contours of the self.  These notions resonate with the slick surfaces and soft appeal of both Haldeman’s paintings and Rieger’s sculptures.  Seen together, they suggest that the body itself is a mutable terrain, both endlessly varied and potentially infinite, with shifting boundaries allowing for the transformation of shape and identity and the oscillation between familiar and strange, self and other. This extends to and implicates the viewer by appealing to the visceral.  Rieger’s sculptures alternately evoke cyborg amalgamations and prosthetic limbs, inviting touch in either case. In Haldeman’s paintings the viewer is sometimes voyeuristically observing her figure’s private moments, and sometimes inhabiting their point of view. Jointly, the works animate the slippery distinction between the self and those around us.

Ivy Haldeman (b. 1985 Aurora, CO) received her B.F.A from the Cooper Union in 2008, and has continued her art practice in Brooklyn, NY.  Drawing from a wide range of influences, including Hellenistic sculpture, Japanese Ukiyo-e prints, and contemporary painting, her work seeks new humanisms through explorations of the corporeal and the day-to-day.  Haldeman’s work has been reviewed in the New York Times and the Wall Street Journal.  Recent solo exhibitions include, Breathless (Colossus), Royal Nonesuch Gallery, Oakland, CA (2017); and Ivy Haldeman, Mayor Projects, Aarhus, DK (2017). She has also exhibited at Paul Kasmin Gallery, and Arsenal Contemporary in New York.

Douglas Rieger (b. 1984 Pittsburgh, PA) received his B.F.A. from Virginia Commonwealth University in 2008 and M.F.A. from Yale University School of Art in 2016. Bridging figuration and abstraction in his sculptures made of wood and silicone, Rieger draws inspiration from objects such as plumbing valves, motor cases, tool handles, fishing rods, door hardware, reproductions of American colonial furniture, and familiar domestic objects. He lives and works in Brooklyn, NY.