"Richard Rezac's Grand Domesticity" by Rachel Youens

Richard Rezac, a Chicago-based sculptor, is having his first solo show at Luhring Augustine Chelsea. Rezac’s abstract sculptures are supra-sensual forms. His method of slow, deliberate decision-making yields a heightened sensuality that suggests many things at once. Standing on the floor or in corners, hung on walls at different heights, or suspended from ceilings, his work is purposefully disorienting, opening the viewer to novel perceptions.

At modest scale and arm’s-length reach, it reflects and encourages expansive impulses. Rezac pursues proportionate asymmetries, yet the particularity of his work embodies both grandeur and domesticity. His materials, keyed to the “ages of man,” evoke glimpses of cultural memory, while his consideration of planar relief and colored surfaces point to his ongoing engagement with painting.

Through various motifs, Rezac questions and addresses the problems of articulation and elision within formal and metaphorical relationships. One favored theme is based on framings, moldings, and enclosures; another involves the interactive pairing of volumetric forms on tables. Several works in the show relate to the Baroque architect Francesco Borromini and others Rezac studied during a recent residency at the American Academy of Rome. Rezac’s aesthetic logic appropriately resists clear, easy conclusions. His affinity for structure and artisanal materiality leads to distilled syntheses of form, prompting us to assess his intriguing propositions with engaged, extended looking.

Read full article at twocoatsofpaint.com