This August Sandeep Mukherjee will embark upon a residency that will culminate in a solo show in Berlin. Last fall Mukherjee was invited by the gallery 68projects in Berlin to show his new work and the Villa Aurora & Thomas Mann House, a Los Angeles based arts institution that offers artist residencies, offered to sponsor him while he completes his work in Berlin.
Mukherjee will show an installation of sculptural paintings hung from the ceiling that encompasses multiple parts formed from a reverse repousse process in which he presses industrial grade foil on the exterior of his 2006 Mini Cooper to form a mold of the car. Each piece of foil is approximately four by four feet and once pressed into its shape, Mukherjee uses paint and household chemicals sprayed from squirt bottles to apply color and texture to the foil. The exterior shell will be black and white in tone and the interior will be soft colored flesh tones.
The artist intends for the viewer to interact with his work, allowing them to touch the dangling forms thereby creating subtle movements that will emanate soft sounds as the pieces of foil gently collide into one another. Mukherjee transforms the physicality and rigid materiality of the car through his use of soft pigmented dangling foil pieces and metamorphoses it into an ethereal object.
The exhibition at 68projects in Berlin titled Molting the Fractured features Sandeep Mukherjee’s work and will run from September 9- November 4, 2017. There will be an artist’s talk with Dr. Jeni Fulton, Art Historian and Editor-in-Chief of SLEEK Magazin on Thursday, September 14, 2017.