October 14 — November 25, 2023
Closer Than They Appear
Ted Larsen
Conduit Gallery is honored to announce the sixth solo of works by Santa Fe-based sculptor Ted Larsen. The seventeen small-scale sculptures in the exhibition, both wall-based and pedestal mounted, come from a two-person museum exhibition at the Esbjerg Museum in Denmark that was on view in the summer of 2023.
“Closer than they appear’, is a phrase seen daily, multiple times, in your rearview mirror. A simple warning to heed the objects around us and make cautious decisions as a result. Larsen reads a deft metaphor for life in this simple statement. When we see our own life’s history in rear view, there can be an aggrandizing or romanticizing the past, ultimately prioritizing it over the future.
Everyone’s personal history will inform how they absorb art. Our differences make the viewing experience unique to each individual. With this in mind, Larsen created the work in this exhibition with pre-painted salvaged materials, each with their own histories and differentiated from the artist’s personal history.
Notes Larsen regarding this relationship, “The compositional elements used in the work stem from geometric and mathematical progressions coming from High Minimalism (1960-1980). I struggle with the balance between my personal history, my aesthetic interests historically, and what and how to see in my own work. Scale is an important aspect for me as well. In larger work, things like power, muscularity, and force are commonly used to describe it while in smaller work descriptions often used are potency, density, or efficacy. I create small work. My definition of scale is pretty simple. When it’s larger than a human being, its scale is large and when it’s smaller than the human body, it’s small. My work is rarely wider than my shoulders and never taller than I am. I am interested in making work which addresses the conditions of potency, density, and efficacy, with my specific interests within the history of Art, my relative position to Art, and how to find ways to challenge my assumptions about all it. I hope all of this of captivates the viewer as well.”
Ted Larsen (b. 1964, USA) is an internationally exhibiting artist and Pollock-Krasner Foundation recipient with a BA from Northern Arizona University. The work he creates supply commentary on minimalist belief systems and the ultimate importance of High Art practice. Since 2001, Larsen has used alternative and salvage materials in his studio exercises.
Ted Larsen's work has been exhibited widely in museums in the US, including the New Mexico Museum of Art in Santa Fe, The Albuquerque Museum, The Amarillo Museum of Art, The Spiva Center for the Arts in Joplin, Missouri, and the Philadelphia Museum of Art as well as in over eighty gallery exhibitions. He has received grants from the Surdna Foundation and the Pollock Krasner Foundation, as well as residencies with the Edward F. Albee Foundation and Asilah Arts Festival in Morocco, where he was the selected to be the USA representative. He has guest lectured at The South Carolina Governor's School for the Arts in Greenville, South Carolina; University of Art and Design in Santa Fe, New Mexico; The Palm Springs Art Museum, Palm Springs, California; The New Mexico Museum of Art, Santa Fe, New Mexico; Site Santa Fe, Santa Fe, New Mexico; Texas Society of Architects, Dallas, Texas.
Larsen has been featured in Art in America, ArtNews, SouthWest Art, Mountain Living, Architectural Digest, Sculpture Magazine, and Art Gallery International magazines. He has had reviews in The New York Times, The Philadelphia Inquirer, The Denver Post, and The Dallas Morning News amongst others. Larsen's work appears in the books Art On The Edge, Biennial Southwest, The Curtain of Trees, New American Paintings, and Millennium Collection. Public Broadcasting Service (PBS) produced an interview with Larsen.
Ted Larsen is included in the collections of The New Mexico Museum of Art, The Palm Springs Art Museum, The New Mexico Department of Cultural Affairs, The Edward F. Albee Foundation, Proctor & Gamble, The Bolivian Consulate, Reader's Digest, PepsiCo, The University of Miami, The University of Texas, Krasel Art Center, Dreyfus Funds, JP Morgan Chase, Forbes and Pioneer Hi-Bred, Inc.