Ryan Taber

A Rhetoric of Ills; The Ekologie of Ornament at the Causatum of Stillness

September 9 – October 7, 2006

Installation view

Installation view

Installation view

Installation view

Installation view

Guimard's Annexation of Antonioni's Mirage: Landscape excerpt from Zabriskie point with Desert Fox Den, Pygmy Owl Nest, Saguaro Cactus and the right side of the Palais Royal Metro Station, 2006
Wood, thermoset plastic, polyester resin, polyurathane foam
5 x 12 x 4 feet

Guimard's Annexation of Antonioni's Mirage: Landscape excerpt from Zabriskie point with Desert Fox Den, Pygmy Owl Nest, Saguaro Cactus and the right side of the Palais Royal Metro Station (DETAIL), 2006
Wood, thermoset plastic, polyester resin, polyurathane foam
5 x 12 x 4 feet

Guimard's Annexation of Antonioni's Mirage: Landscape excerpt from Zabriskie point with Desert Fox Den, Pygmy Owl Nest, Saguaro Cactus and the right side of the Palais Royal Metro Station (DETAIL), 2006
Wood, thermoset plastic, polyester resin, polyurathane foam
5 x 12 x 4 feet

Guimard's Annexation of Antonioni's Mirage: Landscape excerpt from Zabriskie point with Desert Fox Den, Pygmy Owl Nest, Saguaro Cactus and the right side of the Palais Royal Metro Station (DETAIL), 2006
Wood, thermoset plastic, polyester resin, polyurathane foam
5 x 12 x 4 feet

(Untitled) Charpentier's Music Stand, 1901 with Haeckel's DiscoMeduse, 1904 and D'Annunzio's SVA 9, 1918
2006
Thermoset plastic, Wood, Epoxy
40 x 11 x 11 inches

(Untitled) Charpentier's Music Stand, 1901 with Haeckel's DiscoMeduse, 1904 and D'Annunzio's SVA 9, 1918 (DETAIL), 2006
Thermoset plastic, Wood, Epoxy
40 x 11 x 11 inches

(Untitled) Charpentier's Music Stand, 1901 with Haeckel's DiscoMeduse, 1904 and D'Annunzio's SVA 9, 1918 (DETAIL), 2006
Thermoset plastic, Wood, Epoxy
40 x 11 x 11 inches

The Dwelling of Mark Frachette's Eidolon; Sumac Bush from outside the Frederick C. Robie House, 1908-1910, with abandoned Trochilidae Kolibris nest, 2006
Glass, zinc, thermoset plastic
34 x 45 x 30 inches

The Dwelling of Mark Frachette's Eidolon; Sumac Bush from outside the Frederick C. Robie House, 1908-1910, with abandoned Trochilidae Kolibris nest (DETAIL), 2006
Glass, zinc, thermoset plastic
34 x 45 x 30 inches

Ray W. Evans House, 1908: Sighting of a cross specie mating pair. White-Muffed Fan Tail, Female & Magenta-Crest Thistle Throat, Male, 2006
Graphite and Watercolor on Paper
38 1/2 x 33 inches

J. Kribben Ingalls House, 1909: Sighting of a newly identified Red-Crown Feather Neck, 2006
Graphitte and Watercolor on Paper
38 1/2 x 24 1/2 inches

Harley Bradley House, 1910: Sighting of a newly identified D'Annunzios' emerald-crest numb-neck, 2006
Graphite and Watercolor on Paper
38 1/2 x 22 inches

Ferdinand F. Tomek House, 1904-1906 with Capanariae Glockenpolypen, Plate 45. Kunstformen der Natur, 1904, 2006
Graphite and Watercolor on Paper
48 1/4 x 38 1/2 inches

Frederick C. Robie House, 1908-1910, with Discomedusae, Plate 8. Kunstformen der Natur, 1904, 2006
Graphite and Watercolor on Paper
53 1/4 x 34 1/2 inches

Susan Lawrence Dana House 1902-1904, with Siphonophore, Plate 7. Kunstformen der Natur, 1904, 2006
Graphite and Watercolor on Paper
50 1/4 x 35 1/2 inches

Taliesin Quartzite, Teddy Bear Cholla (Opuntia Bigelovii) and Palais Royal right lamp post light housing, 2006
Watercolor on Paper
30 3/4 x 21 1/2 inches

Taliesin Quartzite, Graham's Pincushion (Mamillaria Grahamii) and Palais Royal Rear, Right fence Post. Concrete footing intact, 2006
Watercolor on Paper
29 x 20 1/2 inches

Taliesin Quartzite, Brittle Bush (encilia Farinosa) and Palais Royal single cartouche, right fence, intact, 2006
Watercolor on Paper
20 1/2 x 29 inches

Ernst Haeckel's Trochilidae Kolibris Nest, 1904, with materials from the Tree Of Life, Darwin D. Martin house, 1903-5, Buffalo New York, scavenged by Gabrielle D'Annunzio's SVA 9 from the great Vienna Raid of August 9th 1918, and displaying Antonioni's avian ornamentation from Zabriskie Point, 1970, 2006
Watercolor on Paper
26 1/2 x 42 1/2 inches

Press Release

Mark Moore Gallery is pleased to announce A Rhetoric of Ills: The Ekologie of Ornament at the Causatum of Stillness, Ryan Taber’s second solo exhibition at the gallery. The exhibition brings together a selection of Taber’s recent drawings and sculptures drawn from interrelated research projects.

In Taber’s Light Screen series, graphite and watercolor render neglected Frank Lloyd Wright windows that once mediated his patrons’ views of the world outside of his enclave. Appropriating illustrations of marine life by the nineteenth century Natural Philosopher Ernst Haeckel, Taber’s broken panes become host to a series of miraculous vandals, various species of Haeckel’s Hydrozoa.

Somewhere Outside Phoenix; Guimard’s Annexation of Antonioni’s Mirage, is the most ambitious sculptural work in the exhibition. For this piece, Taber reconstructs a scale model of a small section of a landscape from a still extracted from Michelangelo Antonioni’s Zabriskie Point. The scene reflects the perspective of one of the films’ protagonist’s as she gazes toward a hillside residence designed by a student of Frank Lloyd Wright and imagines the structure exploding across the Arizona horizon. In the work, the desert flora of the scene bear the evidence of the mirage’s effect, only the blast debris is from an earlier architectural form, Hector Guimard’s Metro entrance adjacent to the Louvre. This spacio/temporal rift alludes to the cycles of political agency associated with periods of romantic idealism while considering the consequences of the stylization of their record.

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