Large Charcoal and Vermilion Pastel Drawing by John Monti

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Stunning abstract composition by John Monti.

John Monti (1957-) is one of the upcoming "undiscovered" artists of his generation. This … Read more Stunning abstract composition by John Monti.

John Monti (1957-) is one of the upcoming "undiscovered" artists of his generation. This piece, dated 1987, belongs to his early period.

John Monti has exhibited regularly in New York since the mid-1980s. Against a fluctuating backdrop of stylistic convulsion he has single-mindedly pursued his own ideas.

Monti's work is ingeniously devised and fabricated. His earliest wood sculptures, suggesting unlikely mergers of Constructivism and West African ethnographic objects, displayed joinery worthy of a piano builder or luthier. The artist's later, soft-edge Neo-Minimalist work--which hung off walls and flattened onto floors--recruited Industrial ingredients (rubber and fiberglass) and similarly pushed the inherent limits of its materials.

His exhibition at Elizabeth Harris raised the technical bar. The scrupulous fabrication of the low-relief wall ensembles in this show approaches the perverse. Drawing from manufactured consumer products, the painstakingly handmade components are all but indistinguishable from machine-made objects. See less