Avery Lawrence:
Moving A Tree and Arranging Suitcases

Avery Lawrence: Moving A Tree and Arranging Suitcases
March 9 - April 21st, 2012
Opening Reception: Friday, March 9, 6-8 pm

Heiner Contemporary is proud to present Moving A Tree and Arranging Suitcases, projects by New Orleans-based artist Avery Lawrence. The exhibition revolves around two films, which are supplemented by drawing, installation, photography and artist-designed wallpaper. Transforming himself to play diverse characters, the artist builds the films’ narratives around tasks, which he uses to trace intimate family histories. He mixes personal memory and mythology to convey ideas of loss, transition, and reinvention.

New for this show, Arranging Suitcases charts a physical and emotional journey, which evolves around the experiences of three protagonists whose stories interweave to transport and ultimately unite a set of suitcases and reveal their contents. For this film Lawrence draws on the artistic traditions of Merce Cunningham, Francis Alÿs, and Allora and Calzadilla. Hollywood as well as fine art films inform his film making as does a preoccupation with notions of futility and the absurd.

Moving A Tree documents and re-presents a performance centered on the story of a tree and characters that destroy and then rebuild it. The narrative opens as the artist considers an ailing walnut tree and continues as he responds to a deep-seated drive to destroy it. Once the tree has been felled, Lawrence sets about rebuilding it piece by piece. He resurrects the tree through an enormous physical effort, but only in broken form. Through his destruction and rebuilding of the tree, Lawrence offers a poetic account of the ephemeral quality of all natural things.

Lawrence graduated from the University of Pennsylvania in 2008 with a degree in Visual Studies. He was commissioned by Chester River Press to create 52 illustrations for a fine press printing of the Iliad and Odyssey. In 2009, he founded The Pomp, an experimental studio and print shop in Charlottesville, VA. Lawrence premiered Moving A Tree at the 2011 (e)merge art fair in Washington, DC, and showed it later that year at SCOPE Miami. The work has been featured in many publications, including New American Paintings Blog, ArtINFO, and Artnet.com. Lawrence lives and works in New Orleans, LA.