Gabriel Kuri: motion in acceptance of an impending crash

Gabriel Kuri’s exhibition at Sadie Coles HQ this spring features three new bodies of work. In sculptural reliefs, textiles and assemblages of fabricated materials, Kuri explores ideas that have guided his practice in recent years – those of material and immaterial exchange, and the capacity for any given system to presage its own disintegration.

In three new sculptures in steel, Kuri has produced enlarged versions of ‘tip plates’ – the small trays used in restaurants and bars for bearing cards, receipts and cash. In place of these typical contents, Kuri has assembled sculptural objects on the surface of each plate – cut-outs from pie-graphs rendered in laser-cut steel, or curved lines based on the touchless ‘tap and pay’ logo. Referring both to physical and electronic modes of transaction, the moveable fragments imply systems that have been dismantled, dispersed, or thrown into disorder.

This sense of free play finds a counterpoint in the objects’ alluring tactility and formalism.