Gabriel Kuri: And Thanks in Advance

Gabriel Kuri’s sculptural work is sometimes mistakenly associated with the spirit of Arte Povera, doubtless because of his use of household materials and commonplace objects. But it is a wider dailiness, rather than a specific humility or poverty, that his work asserts; it sits between the familiarity of the readymade sculpture and the sculpturally built. Consequently his materials can range from store receipts to fabric or rock. Going back home with two big bags of shopping: that sensation for me is sculpture, he says. And Thanks in Advance shows works completed between 2006 and 2007 at the Govett-Brewster Artist in Residence program in New Zealand. Critical essays by the curators of the Govett-Brewster gallery and the Castello di Rivoli Museum of Contemporary Art in Turin shed light on Kuri’s artistic vision within the context of contemporary art practice.