William Corwin

Geary is pleased to present William Corwin’s The Old Gods, an exhibition of metal and plaster casts that explore how objects absorb aspiration and desire and reflect back regenerative power. Based on sculptural types drawn from Sumerian, Babylonian, Eqyptian, and Hellenistic antiquity, Corwin distills these mythological and spiritual images of deities, demons and kings down into their pure symbolic content and finds their commonalities. He scales his sculptures so that they insert themselves directly into the presence of the viewer: his goal is to instill in the spectator a desire to hold these pieces in their hands, activating unexpected emotions of tenderness, intrigue and delight not often associated with contemporary sculpture.

A fully illustrated 96 page catalog will accompany the exhibition; featuring writings by Jarrett Earnest, Charlotta Kotik, Gregory Volk, Elisabeth Kley and Saul Ostrow, as well as discussions between Corwin and archaeologists Colin Renfrew and Yonas Beyene.

William Corwin's work has been reviewed and written about in Art Monthly, ArtNews, Modern Painters, Sculpture Magazine, The New York Times, Bomb, Art Critical, The Brooklyn Rail, Time Out and the BBC. He exhibited at the historic Clocktower Gallery, and recently at The Shiva Gallery at John Jay College, Zürcher Gallery, and Catinca Tabacaru in New York, and The Red Gate Gallery in Beijing, the Frise Künstlerhaus in Hamburg, and the George and Jorgen Gallery and Gazelli Art House in London. He exhibited regularly at the LaMama Gallery in the late 90’s and early 2000’s and at Gallery Aferro and Index Art Space in Newark, the Flushing Town Hall (a Smithsonian Affiliate), and The Castle Gallery. Corwin is the recipient of a Jerome Foundation Grant, a Kress Foundation Grant, and residencies at the Clocktower Gallery, Art Omi, Queens College Art Center, the Lower Manhattan Cultural Council and chashama. He has curated exhibitions at the Camera Club of New York, and the art galleries at Lafayette College, Albright College, and Seton Hall University. He has written for Frieze, Artpapers and Bomb, and his interviews have been anthologized in The Little Magazine in Contemporary America, (2015, University of Chicago Press), About Trees, (2015, Broken Dimanche Press), and Tell Me Something Good, (2017, David Zwirner Press). This is Corwin's second solo exhibition with Geary.