JJ PEET and Rob Rhee: Rogue Objects

ROGUE OBJECTS
JJ PEET & Rob Rhee
August 26 – October 1, 2016

Fort Worth Contemporary Arts
Opening reception, Friday August 26th, 6-8pm
Artist talks, Saturday August 27th, 2pm

Using sculpture, video and photography, JJ PEET and Rob Rhee respond to the ways culture and technology imprint on and reshape our bodies. Their works amplify the threshold between human and machine, and challenge a popularly accepted belief that the condition of interface is a seamless and normal experience.

JJ PEET is primarily known for ceramic work, but does in fact work across a range of media to investigate contemporary juxtapositions of still-life and potency, violence and fragility. His hybrid porcelain forms combine additional modest materials such as rubber, canvas, cement and found objects like photographs and electronic parts. Sometimes his references are direct, for instance, where he examines the shape and function of steadicam rigs and other such apparatus worn by camera operators. He questions how we take photographs or capture film, and considers points of contact that restrict movement in the maker and affect the resulting images.

In his recent series Occupations of Uninhabited Space, Rob Rhee explores issues of control and distortion using gourds. By restricting and redirecting the growth of these fruits with idiosyncratic metal cages, he creates organic metaphors that reflect the power of destabilizing forces. His manipulations of fleshy propagation result in uncomfortable forms that are strange and yet familiar.

Although longtime friends, this exhibition is the first time PEET and Rhee have shown their work together. In Rogue Objects their collaboration brings recent work from their independent practices into direct dialog to materialize conversations that have taken place across many years. This “decisive moment” further echoes a shared interest in the process of incubation and the roles of anticipation and impulse in making their work.

JJ PEET holds an MFA from Yale University (2006) and currently lives and works in Brooklyn. Recent solo exhibitions include BRAIN to HAND to OBJECT at The Contemporary Austin, Austin, and Floating Heads and Time Collector, Redling Fine Arts, Los Angeles. His work has been included in international group exhibitions, FIELD EFFECTS, Le Cap, Arles, France and Live in the layers…not on the litter, Ashley Berlin, Berlin, Germany. PEET has enjoyed artist residencies at Anderson Ranch Art Center, Colorado (1999-2000, 2014) and also recently taught at ceramics at Columbia University (2008-14). PEET is represented by On Stellar Rays, New York. For more information please visit onstellarrays.com/

Rob Rhee holds an MFA from Columbia University (2010) and currently lives in Seattle where he teaches at Cornish College of the Arts. He has exhibited widely in the US, including solo exhibitions at Melanie Flood Projects (Portland) and Glassbox Gallery (Seattle). His work has been shown in international group exhibitions including the Changwon Biennial (South Korea) and Farewell, Galerie Ferdinand Van Dieten (Amsterdam, The Netherlands). Rhee regularly writes for Art in America and Tabletop (blog), and is currently a contributing editor for Heck magazine. For more information please visit the artist’s website: www.robrhee.com

Fort Worth Contemporary Arts is located at 2900 W. Berry St. on the edge of the TCU Campus, Fort Worth, TX 76109. Gallery Hours are Wednesday to Saturday, 12 – 5 pm, and by appointment. Admission is free.

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