Schema Projects is pleased to present a retrospective of drawing works by artist and architect, Allan Wexler and following Wexler’s solo show at Ronald Feldman Gallery. Allan Wexler is a true interdisciplinary artist whose drawings and paper models unite the languages of architecture, sculpture and the fine arts. Allan’s drawings often stand as independent and final products. He plays with the conventions of orthographic drawings that are employed more commonly in product and building design. At turns rueful, playful and provocative, working with paper has been at the heart of his process.

My first encounter with Allan Wexler’s work was the occasion of one of his many solo shows at Ronald Feldman Gallery. The show was a tangible delight of rain-catching structures, ephemeral and mind bending. There were wry conceptual rifts on functional objects and their enabling orthographic drawings, such as chairs, in various layouts, in 3D form or splayed open on the wall, deprived of function- ality. There were works resembling objects, that in one’s mind should be solid and strong, but were not. Big things were made tiny, paper and fabric were made to perform herculean tasks. An intensity of energy was put towards the reconstruction of the humble brick, in paper as a series of miniature sculptures, each with its glass case, his version of “variations on a theme.” There were variety and insistence of seriousness in the “play” that kept one tickled on high notes that never seemed to let up across the gallery space. The pièce de résistance was the recreation of a single 8 foot 2x4, made entirely of yellow tracing paper, leaning ever so nonchalantly, and self sustaining, against the gallery wall with its own wood storage crate.

Wexler delights us with “tiny,” he wows us with craft, he makes us construct function or form in our minds or follow a Rube Goldbergesque quest toward discovery. It would be a mistake to think of this work as merely cheeky, coy or iconoclastic: Wexler creates the context for understanding his work, not just from what we know of the languages of drawings, forms familiar to us, but completely anew, and how often is it that we can say that?

Wexler creates the context for the understanding of his work, not just from what we know of the languages of form familiar to us in architecture, product design, technical drawing or conceptual art, but anew, out of whole cloth, and how often is it that we can say that?

Mary Judge, Owner Director, Schema Projects

Allan Wexler has worked in the fields of fine art, architecture and design for forty-five years, exploring human activity and the built environment. He works as an investigator using series, permutations and chance rather than searching for definitive solutions. He makes buildings, furniture, vessels and utensils as backdrops and props for ordinary human activity. His works isolate, elevate and monumentalize our daily rituals: dining, sleeping and bathing. In turn, these become mechanisms that activate ritual, ceremony and movement, turning these ordinary activities into theater. Allan Wexler is represented in New York by Ronald Feldman Gallery

Some of Allan’s awards include the Rome Prize Fellowship, the George Nelson Design Award (Interiors Magazine) and the Chrysler Award for Design Innovation. Four monographs have been published about his work: Custom Built: A Twenty Year Survey of Work by Allan Wexler, Atlanta College of Art, 1999, Allan Wexler. GG portfolio, Barcelona, Spain, 1998, Allan Wexler: The Fine Art of Applied Art. Stadtgalerie Saarbrucken, Germany, 1997 and Allan Wexler: Structures for Reflection. Karl Ernst Osthaus Museum, Germany 1993. Allan Wexler is represented in New York by Ronald Feldman Gallery.