Zoe Leonard

PRESS RELEASE

Zoe Leonard

6 April – 11 May 2001

Artist reception: Friday, 6 April, 6 to 8 pm

Anthony Meier Fine Arts is pleased to announce its upcoming exhibition of new work by New York artist Zoe Leonard. Comfortable working in a number of different media, Leonard is an accomplished photographer, sculptor and filmmaker. Exhibiting internationally for over twenty years, Leonard was included in the 1997 Whitney Biennial. 

Much of Leonard’s work explores the passage and effects of time and the wear and tear of life on people as objects. In her exhibition at Anthony Meier Fine Arts, Leonard will present three new bodies of work: a group of 16 photographs, a group of 4 photographs, and a suitcase sculpture.

Leonard’s photography employs a simple technique and quiet presentation. The group of 16 photographs deals with the disappearing city.  Leonard captures the layers of time that are apparent as one moves through an urban landscape with the ever present beauty and tenacity of the urban vernacular. 

The series of 4 photographs serves as a counterpoint to the larger group. Over the course of one winter Leonard continually photographed one tree and noticed that there were always different bags caught up in its branches, illustrating how things change but also stay the same.

The suitcase sculpture, a group of 77 suitcases stacked in vertical columns side-by-side, relates to found objects and memory. The implied psychological freight that is carried in individual suitcases can be transferred in a greater sense to people’s lives. The things we carry throughout life are identified by the marks they leave behind.

In Zoe Leonard’s work one sees the traces that people and civilization leave behind as evidence of the passage of time. The mark of the human hand is ever present and never forgotten.