Howard Lerner: Biblical Tales from Trash (gallery show, NYC)

Artist Howard Lerner works with found materials and draws on a variety of spiritual traditions to give new life to ancient icons. I particularly like the "magic box" constructions he does, along the lines of the "wunderkammer" concept my colleague David Pescovitz muses on from time to time. Repetti in NYC will open a show of Lerner's work on March 6. Here's a blurb about the show:

His stated goal is to recreate the Biblical stories of God and man from both image and word. Using the discarded remnants of our civilization for sculptural material, he weaves Holy Scripture into the individual works. This act of re-creation connects the artist (and perhaps the viewer) with the Divinity, and allows the ancient stories to come alive in the present day.
The work isn't bound to a specific religious context, but instead seeks to depict stories that mingle between traditions. A large standing figure, 'Kunda-Shekina-Aherah' brings into one form several traditional representations of the Divine Feminine Principle. Known in Judaism as the Shekinah, in Yoga as the Kundalini Shakti and in the Ancient Near and Middle Eastern religions as the Asherah, the goddess here rises from the artist's vision of The Ark of the Covenant. The goddess, twisting and turning like a serpent, also invokes the Tree of Life, which alludes to what Wikipedia calls, 'the interconnectedness of all life on our planet.'

Breathing a more whimsical air into these mystical wonderings is a series of small, playful constructions inspired by folk art and antique toys. Planes and fish figure prominently, providing a more light-hearted glimpse into the artist's visual exploration of mysterious worlds.

Discussion

Take a look at this

#1 posted by grimc , February 23, 2009 2:40 PM

I thought it was Dot Matrix from "Spaceballs" in that box.

#2 posted by Anonymous , February 23, 2009 3:13 PM

Just wanted to point out that Red Grooms was out in front of this curve by a few decades. As I recall, the sculpture was entitled "Our Lady of Badminton", and consisted of a Romanesque Madonna and Child made entirely from one dime store badminton set and a bit of poster paint.

I can only find one reference, from a 1986 review of a TV documentary:

http://query.nytimes.com/gst/fullpage.html?res=9A0DE3DC173FF937A35755C0A960948260

Tonight's film opens with a quick succession of self-portraits, followed by a close-up, complete with sound effects, of a comic strip that traces the traditional rituals of a man getting up in the morning. Meanwhile, Miss Stein notes that Grooms can work in large scale or in miniature, and that his sense of humor can range from obvious giggles and guffaws to more subtle parody, notably in a Romanesque-like Madonna with a Child that is holding a badminton birdie instead of a bird.