What is my work about?
Bricks, cast ornamentation, tile and cinder blocks are architectural units—both structural and decorative—that define my experience of space. The commanding, repetitive language of building facades forms a visual syntax that speaks directly to me as a vocabulary to examine the mechanics of image-making. I make photographic work that reflects the slippage between my interaction with the physical built environment and my drive to participate critically in the production of images.
Artist Statement
The encounter with architecture as I walk through a city is the starting point for my work. Architectural details speak to me as a series of passing images that frame a sense of place—a psychogeography of the landscape. In this way, I look at architecture as moving image. Buildings, along with the materials they consist of, are constantly in flux. In many of the works such as “Portmanteuax Two” and “Jersey Barrier,” two or three different images collide within one composition, creating spatial glitches and temporal leaps akin to montage and experimental film. This work depicts the visual sensation of walking past a building or group of buildings as fragments of the surrounding imagery dissipate into the periphery.
Many simple decisions throughout my process are informed by the aesthetics of digital image manipulation and production that is ubiquitous on the internet. The layering of photographs and shapes in works like “Strike Slip” and “Estuary” is a direct result of working with Photoshop tools. Working regularly in the collapsed, immaterial space of the computer inherently impacts the perception of physical architecture. As the proliferation of digital images becomes its own form of architecture through sheer mass, persistence and distribution, my work finds solace in the gap between both material and immaterial structures.
Finding a place to insert the mark of my hand is critical for the completion of the work. In some works such as “Green Island” and “Lagoon,” my hand is visible in areas painted around the cutout photographs. In the most recent works, where the rifts between the cut photographic prints are more subtle, such as “Drift Control” and “Compression (Rulers),” I have digitally inserted a carpenter’s ruler and graffiti like marks into the respective images. Whether this activity occurs in the studio, the computer or at the point of taking the initial photograph (as in the handball in “New Babylon”), all of these actions situate the presence of a body in relation to the architecture.
CV
Education
2004 M.F.A. in Studio Art, University of Illinois at Chicago
2002 B.A. Sarah Lawrence College, Bronxville, NY
2001 Middlebury College School in Russia—Irkutsk, Russia
Exhibitions
2014
Sunscreen, Graham, New York, NY
Chancing with the Stars, Cuevas Tilleard Projects, New York
Strata, Arsenal Gallery, Central Park, New York
The Daily Life of Immobile Things, Gridspace, Brooklyn, NY
Regina Rex: New Threads, Lamar Dodd School of Art, Athens, GA
2013
Place to Place to Place, Planthouse, New York
Digital Dye Hard, Ortega y Gasset Projects, Queens, New York
All-Over or Nothing, Parallel, Queens, New York
Peripheral Prose, Longhouse Projects, New York
Max Warsh: BILDER, toomer labzda, New York
2012
Swamp, Poe Park Visitor Center, New York, curated by Kari Adelaide
Shaun Flynn, David Ostrowski, Max Warsh, Shoot the Lobster, New York
Regina Rex: Part One, Eli Ping, New York
Max Warsh and Vanesa Zendejas, SOFA, Austin, TX
2011
CHILDERS/WARSH, New Capital, Chicago, IL
Remnants, Werkhaus, Brooklyn, NY
2009
ANCIENT, C.R.E.A.M. Projects, Brooklyn, NY
2008
I AM I A KILLER, Sam Lee Gallery, Los Angeles, CA
2007
Jean Robison and Max Warsh, Me and You Variety Candy, Los Angeles, CA
Night Light, Slab Projects, Glendale, CA
The Pyramid Show, Monte Vista, Los Angeles, CA
2004
Formfit: State Style, Great Space, University of Illinois at Chicago
M.F.A. Thesis Exhibition, Gallery 400, Chicago, Il
2003
Video: I Like, Sonnenchein Gallery, Lake Forest, Il
Formfit, Great Space, University of Illinois at Chicago
2002
New Photographs, Bates Gallery, Sarah Lawrence College, Bronxville, NY
Curatorial
2010-present Co-founder and curator at the artist-run gallery Regina Rex, NY
Bibliography
Griffin, Nora, “Peripheral Prose,” artcritical.com, August, 2013
Colucci, Emily, “Max Warsh Turns Urban Architecture Into Abstraction at Toomer Labzda,” Societe Perrier, February 2, 2013
Schlesinger, Kyle, “Putting Things Together,” …might be good, issue #191, June 2012.
Biel, Kim, “I AM I A KILLER at Sam Lee Gallery,” Artweek v. 39, issue 8, October 2008.
Wrting
“Siebren Versteeg: On Good Behavior” cat. entry for New. New York. Vienna: Essl Museum, 2012
“Lewis Baltz” and “Hiroshi Sugimoto” entries for This Is Not to Be Looked At: Highlights from the Permanent Collection of The Museum of Contemporary Art, Los Angeles. Los Angeles: Museum of Contemporary Art, 2008.