Robert Burnier: Temple

Friday, Nov 8 – Dec 21, 2019

Andrew Rafacz is pleased to announce the opening of our new location at 1749 West Chicago Avenue with Temple, a solo exhibition of new works by Robert Burnier in Gallery Two.

‘Imprimaturs in geologic time are erased in hours. The sanctuary of a credo signals its absence. Words that are bound into swords.

We can’t seem to remember that the Bull and the Lion will always be fighting, the moment of contact carved into Mesopotamian stone that the waters will wash away, only to be gathered up and carved again.

When will Heaven lie beneath our tired feet? Perhaps it does. When do we taste the glory? We may never have, but always will.’ – R.B.

Temple inquires into the spiritual, mythical and demiurgic as personal and historical mover, and as horizon for the possible. Sanctuary and citadel, power in repose, the combination of material and spiritual energy in self-possession. If ancient narratives and rhymes still haunt modernity, and we still struggle with where the story is going, what can change this script?

As one looks into the gaze of the Achaemenid bulls’ heads, they gaze back. The Temple of Dendur makes one dream of being on the still waters before it in wonder. Again and again, the Bull and the Lion meet in relief and image, a reminder that another clash is always around the corner. The ochre geometries of Blombos cave reveal that a different kind of order awaits.

ROBERT BURNIER (American, b. 1969) lives and works in Chicago, IL. He received his MFA from the School of the Art Institute in painting and drawing in 2016. He also holds a BS in Computer Science from Shippensburg University of Pennsylvania (1991). He has had recent solo exhibitions at David B. Smith Gallery (Denver, CO), and The Arts Club of Chicago (Chicago, IL). Recent group exhibitions include Vacation (New York, NY), Korn Gallery at Drew University (Madison, NJ), Mana Contemporary (Chicago, IL), The Art Institute of Chicago (Chicago, IL), and Elmhurst Art Museum (Elmhurst, IL). Independent Curators International commissioned a series of works that were presented at NADA Miami (2014) and NADA New York (2015) respectively. His large-scale installation Black Tiberinus is currently on view on Chicago’s riverfront. He has exhibited at art fairs in Chicago, Miami, New York, Mexico City, and Copenhagen. This is his fourth solo exhibition with the gallery.