Choi & Lager gallery, in collaboration with Galerie Division (Montreal, Canada) is pleased to present an exhibition combining the works of Canadian artists Nicolas Baier and Patrick Coutu in their first appearance in Germany. Both artists work closely with the scientific structures we impose on the world, making visible the concepts we construct to understand our environments.

Though science has shifted our collective faith from the religious to the empirical, Baier’s work reminds us that our understanding of the universe remains imperfect, hindered by personal biases and reactionary instincts. His recent prints and sculptures use the latest technologies – 3D printing, CNC routing, computer farm rendering, etc. – and extensive consultation with astrophysicists, to interrogate our growing reliance on the digital world. Baier’s work is rich with data and research, precision and erudition, yet it is its seductive aesthetic that gives us the greatest sense of reassurance, validating our flawed logic with a false affirmation of our desires.

Baier's work has been presented at the Massachusetts Museum of Contemporary Art, the National Gallery of Canada, the Musée d’art contemporain de Montréal and the Musée des beaux-arts du Québec. His works are found in several private and public collections, including those of the National Gallery of Canada, the Art Gallery of Ontario, and the Schwartz Collection at the Harvard Business School.

Working in a range of materials, Patrick Coutu explores the imperceptible patterns underpinning organic matter. His bronze-and aluminum-based sculptures originate on his computer, their shapes forged by the various programs he designs, their digital origins mimicking the orderly chaos of vegetal and mineral life.

Rendered in noble metals and treated with nuanced patination, the sculptures recall elements of the natural world such as reefs, gardens, and striated rock. Seen through the lens of technology, the pixel-like units of which they are comprised evoke the rudiments of chemistry and the ones and zeros of the digital realm.

Patrick Coutu lives and works in Montreal. His work has been exhibited at the National Gallery of Canada (2017), the Musée d’art contemporain de Montréal (2008), and the Musée des beaux-arts du Québec (2018). His work can be found in museum collections across Canada and in private collections internationally. In 2016, the Musée des beaux-arts du Québec inaugurated a public sculpture by Coutu in Quebec City.