On view in "The World is Round"
MetroTech Center, Brooklyn
October 26, 2006 – September 9, 2007

The World is Round features new commissions and recent works by Jacob Dyrenforth, Diana Guerrero-Maciá, Chris Hanson & Hendrika Sonnenberg, Matt Johnson, and Ryan McGinness, all of whom have created works that explore collective consciousness and expression. Although the artists work in a variety of media and thematic areas, their practices are all linked by an interest in shared languages and systems, whether personal or political, formal or informal.

Brooklyn-based artist Jacob Dyrenforth's wide-ranging artistic output examines the ways in which elements of contemporary life become universal common denominators and touchstones, focusing in particular on cinematic tropes, the phenomena of rock superstardom and fandom, and countercultural incidents as they are represented in widespread photojournalistic imagery. His sculptural installations are replicas of culturally resonant tableaux, featuring an array of props that are constructed with purposeful artifice in order to draw attention to the familiar and easily overlooked.

Stand-Ins for the All-Time Greatest resembles a rock concert in the moments just before a show, when guitars are tuned and propped on stands until the band arrives onstage, as the crowd waits in anticipation. Dyrenforth's guitars, which are made of foam and other movie or theatrical prop materials, are clearly stand-ins for the real thing. But music buffs will easily recognize them as depictions of specific makes and models of guitars, including a Fender Stratocaster, a Gibson SG, a Fender Telecaster and others. They represent the signature instruments of ten musicians whose names Dyrenforth compiled from an assortment of internet top-ten lists of the greatest guitar players of all time. Using the most minimal visual clues—basic shapes and just a few added design details—he creates a work that explores the universal appeal of rock-and-roll culture, as well as its online proliferation. The guitars and the stage they are placed on—a pristine minimalist platform with a mirrored surface—together function as a blank screen onto which the viewer can project his or her own narrative.

Artist Bio
Dyrenforth was born in 1975 in Cincinnati. He received a BFA from the School of the Art Institute of Chicago (1998) and an MFA from the Columbia University School of the Arts (2003). His solo exhibitions include Some get strong, some get strange, Sandroni Rey, Los Angeles; The Yearn, Wallspace, New York (2006) and Vice. And Versa, 31 Grand Gallery, New York (2005).

Sponsorship
The World Is Round at MetroTech Center is part of an ongoing program organized by the Public Art Fund and sponsored by MetroTech Commons Associates, an organization that consists of MetroTech companies Bear Stearns & Company, Forest City Ratner Companies, JPMorganChase, KeySpan, and Polytechnic University.

Special thanks to Forest City Ratner Companies and First New York Partners.

Location
MetroTech Center is located in Downtown Brooklyn between Jay Street and Flatbush Avenue at Myrtle Avenue. Viewing hours are dawn to dusk daily for outdoor works, Monday through Friday 8am to 6pm for Jacob Dyrenforth's installation in the lobby of One MetroTech. Subway: A, C, F to Jay Street/Borough Hall, exit at Myrtle Promenade; R to Lawrence Street; Q to Dekalb Avenue.