Palden Weinreb: Veiled Realms

Rossi & Rossi is delighted to present Veiled Realms, a solo exhibition of Tibetan-American artist Palden Weinreb’s new and monumental mixed-media sculptures.

Inspired and informed by Buddhist thought and motifs, the artist’s three-dimensional works explore the idea of existence, focusing especially on one of the core teachings of Buddhism: the conscious detachment from the illusions of the earthly realm and the escape from samsara (the repeating cycle of life and death).

“I think the general goal in my work is to transcend the viewer’s perception”, says Weinreb, “and take it to a space or existence that lies beyond our comprehension”. The essence of his practice can thus be viewed as the search for something that is invisible to us, or that has yet to be elucidated in a graspable way—something that transcends all the phenomena surrounding modern life, including everyday events, social and political happenings, and specific ideologies.

In these mesmerising new works, Weinreb has adopted concrete Buddhist motifs such as offering bowls, sutras and stupas, as well as highly abstract forms that resemble vessels, containers and lighthouses. The addition of light to these pieces is perhaps an attempt to usher our consciousness into a realm beyond the façades that we see.

What, exactly, lies beyond these façades? Confronting these sculptures, we may perhaps find that the realm beyond the consciousness or psychological abyss we stare at is, in fact, connected to something that transcends human understanding, and which cannot be substituted with tangible images or words.

A fully illustrated catalogue with an essay by Mami Kataoka, chief curator of Tokyo’s Mori Art Museum, accompanies the exhibition.

ABOUT THE ARTIST:
Palden Weinreb was born in 1982 in New York, where he continues to live and work. In 2006, he traveled to Tibet to reconnect with his heritage, an experience that resonates in his work. A graduate of Skidmore College, from which he holds a Bachelor of Science degree, the artist has exhibited in the United States at the Rubin Museum of Art, New York; the Frances Young Tang Teaching Museum and Art Gallery, Saratoga Springs; and the Asian Art Museum of San Francisco, and his work is included in the collection of the Devi Art Foundation, Delhi, India.