FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE:

MICHAEL COOPER                                                      STEFAN SAFFER

grids                                                                               unfold

February 8 – March 10, 2007

PAVEL ZOUBOK GALLERY is pleased to announce the opening of two solo exhibitions by New York artist MICHAEL COOPER and German artist STEFAN SAFFER. Please join us for the opening reception on Thursday, February 8, from 6-8pm, or during the run of the exhibition, which continues through March 10.

The gallery is located at:533 West 23rd Street (between 10th & 11th Avenues).

Gallery Hours: Tuesday – Saturday, 10am-6pm

The expressive power of the grid and an abiding interest in color has informed the collages, paintings and accumulations of MICHAEL COOPER for three decades. An invaluable tool for painters and sculptors alike, the grid represents the very foundation of compositional structure. In a process that he calls “disciplining junk”, Cooper creates meticulous monochromatic grids from all manner of ephemera (movie tickets, product labels, stamps, buttons, etc.). Working within a tradition commonly associated with layering and material density, these deceptively simple and intimately scaled works are at once rich in visual and cultural reference and coolly minimalist in the simplicity of their arrangement. The current exhibition also includes new paintings on canvas that echo the reductive orientation of Cooper’s mixed-media constructions.

MICHAEL COOPER has exhibited at the Albright-Knox Art Gallery (Buffalo, NY), the Virginia Museum of Fine Arts (Richmond, VA) and O.K. Harris Gallery (New York). This is his second solo exhibition at Pavel Zoubok Gallery.

STEFAN SAFFER creates intricate abstract compositions from single sheets of painted, cut and folded paper. Using an economy of means, he establishes a complex system of formal and thematic relations. His vibrantly colored works defy categorization, mining the expressive spaces between drawing, painting and sculpture. Continuing a tradition of hard-edged abstraction rooted in the paper cut-outs of Henri Matisse and the painterly juxtapositions of New York School artists such as Fritz Bultman and Lee Krasner, Saffer takes a decidedly methodical albeit intuitive approach. Drawn from printed sources and basic paper materials, these double-sided works may be traced to their origin and can conceivably be unfolded to reveal a single form or element. Through his process, Saffer carves out a space for the viewer that resists repetition and facile interpretation.

STEFAN SAFFER received his MFA from Goldmsiths College in London (1998) and participated in the Whitney Program in New York City (2003-2004). He recently completed a year-long residency at Delfina Studios, London and has had solo exhibitions at Kate MacGarry Gallery, London and Galerie Villa Grisebach, Berlin. Group exhibitions include the ICA, London; Lenbachhaus, Munich; Bauhaus Stiftung, Dessau; Kunstverein, Göettingen; Kunstverein, Aschaffenburg; Kunsmuseum, Søro, Denmark. He lives and works in Berlin.

For additional information and images, please contact Maggie Seidel at (212) 675 7490 or maggie@pavelzoubok.com