Daniel Turner

• 8 ½ × 10 ¼ inches (21.6 × 26 cm), Landscape
• Hardcover, 38 pages

From the foundation: The Maria Leuff Foundation is pleased to present an exhibition of recent sculptures by American artist Daniel Turner. For Turner, form is a process of transformation, achieved through the manipulation of materials, objects and environments into tactile or atmospheric forms. For his current exhibition, Turner has recast chairs from a psychiatric facility into a solid metal object, which has been permanently inset into the concrete floor of the Maria Leuff Foundation. This calibrated block of aluminum constitutes the centerpiece of the exhibition, a transposition of one institution into another.

A second sculpture titled, Double Blind / Mercury Release, was produced by dropping fluorescent lights from the gallery’s ceiling fixtures. The shattered fluorescent tubes release a trace amount of mercury into the air, catalyzing a synthetic chemical process. The implied presence of mercury takes on an alchemical connotation—appealing to senses apart from sight alone, while engaging directly with the gallery’s environing architecture.

Opposite these interventions, a segmented sculpture consisting of Kerosene soaked cardboard panels serves as conduits to heat. Set against a greater industrial and institutional landscape, this work foregrounds how cognition enters into experience, shading how beliefs and delusions color our perception of both space and the environment.