“Is there a way in which spring boarding someone out of a
cannon, creating the illusion of a rocketed piece of ammunition serves as a
metaphor for the act of making art?”
Leutrum was initially inspired by a newspaper photograph of
two human cannonball performers he came upon in the spring of 2009. As Leutrum
recalls, “The seemingly contradictory spectacle of figures propelled into space
while suspended within a frozen frame was extremely seductive. What is it that
inspires performers to participate in an act that muddies the line between
playfulness and genuine danger? What is it that compels others to bear witness?
The connotations of an explosive, menacing and almost violent event, combined
with a frolicsome circus atmosphere, merged to form a slew of potent visual
possibilities.”
At A.P.E., Leutrum realizes these possibilities through a
myriad of perspectives that go at his subject both head-on and wide-angle. The
show’s pulsating centerpiece is a triptych that scans the trajectory of a human
cannonball from launch to flight, culminating in a fragmented plummet.
The cannonball series signals an ambitious new turn in
Leutrum’s investigation of the human form as dynamic entity, a theme he has
explored in varying scales and motifs from sprawling abstractions of men in
armor to intimate convex canvases of diving figures. In 2005, he showed his
chimerical still lifes and knife paintings at the Institut für Bildbetrachtung
in Berlin. His works have also been shown in various venues in New York City
and can be found in private collections in Germany, France, Canada and the U.S.
Born in Stuttgart, Germany in 1966, Leutrum obtained his
M.F.A. at the Ecole des Beaux Arts in Paris. Not long after earning his degree, Leutrum sojourned to New
York City, pursuing his career as a painter. He is the artist-in-residence at
the Children’s Storefront, an independent school in Harlem, and maintains
studios in Leverett, MA and New York.
MAIN STREET SPACE | August to November, 2010
Upcoming Shows
August 23-30, 2010: WARJet
September 1-12: Mag Hags: Contemporary Collages
September 13-30: Kathy Couch & Wendy Woodson: video installations
