Habitat (Some Pleasures and Discomforts of Domestic Life), New York

Habitat
(Some Pleasures and Discomforts of Domestic Life)
June 10 - July 17, 2010
Opening reception: Thursday June 10, 6-9 p.m.


Twenty First/Twenty First Gallery is pleased to present Habitat (Some Pleasures
and Discomforts of Domestic Life), a group exhibition gathering works by Davide
Balula, Marcelline Delbecq, Jeanne Detallante, Ellie Ga, Ines Lechleitner, Justin
Matherly, Christine Rebet, Slavs and Tatars, and Amy Yao.

Following a collaboration with Cumulus Studio in 2009, presenting a selection of
outdoor functional objects designed by artists Liam Gillick, John Bock and Aaron
Young, among others, the design and limited edition furniture gallery pursues its
interest in contemporary art and invites Béatrice Gross, independent curator, to
organize its next exhibition.

Concerned topically with the representation of domesticity, Habitat reflects on
the decorative mission of a design gallery, while examining, en abîme, the
intimate commodification and institutionalization of private interiors. With the
ambivalence of a family reunion, the exhibition conjures up various orders and
disorders of the domestic apparatus: from daily rituals of bliss and labor to
religious narcissism; from visionary corners to staged domestication; from
diminished bodies to literary heroes; from polar confinements to the Gates of
Hell…

A Temporary Library complements Habitat’s visual investigation: each artist lends
three items from her/his personal library, to constitute a transitory corpus of
printed matters dedicated to domesticity.

Special event:
Thursday June 24, 7 p.m., Ellie Ga, The Fortunetellers: Arctic Circles (10:10), 2010,
in conjunction with the launching of Ga's latest artist’s book: Three Arctic Booklets
(Ugly Duckling Press, NY, 2010).

Furniture: courtesy Twenty First/Twenty First Gallery Collection
Many thanks to Jérome D’Almeida and Nicolas Sarthou for their generous assistance.

Twenty First/Twenty First Gallery
551 West 21st Street, 3rd Floor, New York, NY 10011, T. (212) 206 1967, www.21st21st.com