Leonardo Drew is Represented by Galerie Lelong & Co., Paris and New York

Galerie Lelong & Co. is pleased to announce representation of Leonardo Drew. Drew will present his first solo exhibition at Galerie Lelong & Co., New York, in Spring 2019.

Leonardo Drew is known for creating contemplative abstract sculptural works that play upon a tension between order and chaos. At once monumental and intimate in scale, his work recalls post-Minimalist sculpture that alludes to America’s industrial past. Drew transforms accumulations of raw materials such as wood, scrap metal, and cotton to articulate various overlapping themes with emotional gravitas: from the cyclical nature of life and decay to the inescapable effects of erosion throughout time. The surfaces of his works often seem to establish their own vocabulary, embodying the labored process of writing oneself into history.

This summer, Drew will unveil his first major public art project, City in the Grass, commissioned by the Madison Square Park Conservancy. Building on Drew’s signature technique of assemblage and additive collage, the 100-foot-long installation will be his largest and most ambitious work to date, incorporating new materials and a new conceptual premise. A sprawling aluminum structure covered in colored sand will invoke the designs of a patterned carpet, while wood reliefs emerge from the structure’s undulating forms. With a cinematic scope that might seem to recall Metropolis or the Emerald City, Drew’s cityscape collages together elements of utopia and dystopia that eerily mirror each other. City in the Grass will be on view from June 3, 2019, through December 15, 2019, at Madison Square Park.

Drew’s work is currently on view in Solidary & Solitary: The Joyner/Giuffrida Collection at the Smart Museum, Chicago. His works have been shown internationally and are held in numerous public collections including the Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York; Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum, New York; The Museum of Contemporary Art, Los Angeles; The Hirshhorn Museum and Sculpture Garden, Washington D.C.; and Tate, London. Recent solo museum exhibitions include shows at SCAD Museum of Art, Savannah (2013); Beeler Gallery at the Columbus College of Art & Design (2013); Palazzo Delle Papesse, Centro Arte Contemporanea, Siena, Italy (2006); and the Hirshhorn Museum and Sculpture Garden, Washington, D.C. (2000). Drew’s mid-career survey, Existed, premiered at the Blaffer Gallery at the University of Houston in 2009, and traveled to the Weatherspoon Art Museum in Greensboro, North Carolina, and the DeCordova Sculpture Park and Museum in Lincoln, Massachusetts.

Drew was born in 1961 in Tallahassee, Florida, and he grew up in Bridgeport, Connecticut. He currently lives and works in Brooklyn, New York.

Contact: Abby Addams