FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE

Opening reception: Friday, January 7, 6-8 pm

On January 7, 2000 Friedrich Petzel Gallery will open an exhibition of work by Keith Edmier and Richard Phillips. There will be an opening reception from 6 to 8 p.m. on the 7th of January.

Keith Edmier creates sculpture that reanimates personal memories and frozen moments in time and space. For this exhibition two works from 1998, Beverly Edmier and A Dozen Roses, will be on view. Cast in candy-like pink translucent resin, Beverly Edmier is a life-size sculpture of the artist's mother as she was at 22 years old and nine months pregnant with him. Caressing her womb with her right hand, she gazes down at her belly in an intimate early exchange between mother and son. Dressed in a copy of a pink Chanel suit identical to the one worn by Jackie Kennedy at the time of JFK's assassination, Edmier suggestively links his private vision with the historical past and elicits evocations of life and death.

For a new work Untitled 1999, Edmier has produced dozens of intricately cast laurel leaves, red and white carnations, and blue irises, to create an almost eerie replica of a funeral wreath that might adorn the grave of military veteran.

Before beginning his oil on canvas paintings Richard Phillips creates detailed drawings that are beautifully rendered in charcoal and chalk on paper. On view will be five of these drawings all from 1999. As in the past, Phillips presents a series of women who give a bold and commanding presence. Yet rather than images associated with beauty and fashion, these women have a sense of hardened sensuality. In Jazz and As to War the figures, seen only from the neck up, are like vacant shells that stare tauntingly out at the viewer. In an untitled drawing, the figure is shown half-naked, recoiling backward with a cartoon-like smiley face placed precociously on her breast. Set in contrast to these women is My Sweet Lord, a chiseled drawing of George Harrison who, ironically, seems like a sacred study in the midst of these unsettling women.

Keith Edmier will have a solo exhibition this fall at the Centre Georges Pompidou in Paris and a retrospective exhibition of Richard Phillips work is being organized by the Kunsthalle Zurich also for the fall of 2000.

For further information, please contact the gallery at info@petzel.com, or call (212) 680-9467.