Thursday 5 March 6-9pm @ A+E STUDIOS, 160 West Broadway, New York, NY 10013

ROOM EAST is pleased to announce a special, week-long installation by Sebastian Lloyd Rees, “Numberless crowded streets, high growth of iron, slender, strong, light, splendidly uprising towards clear skies.” The title is taken from Walt Whitman’s Leaves of Grass (1855) in which the poet describes the way that the built environment of the city imposes upon the landscape.This temporary, off-site installation is an extension of “Vendor,” Rees’ current exhibition on view at ROOM EAST (41 Orchard Street), his first solo-presentation in the US. An opening reception will take place on Thursday 5 March from 6-9pm at A+E Studios (160 West Broadway in Tribeca).

Rees will present an urban ecology with found objects and castoff materials. In the entrance of the space stands a thirty-foot long scaffolding over which he will hang an architectural rendering printed on industrial mesh. The result is a monumental site-specific work, a sculptural facade that serves as the centerpiece of an urban mis-en-scène, complete with a live street vendor, plywood hoardings taken from a local construction site, and other assemblages of ephemera and castoffs found in Mumbai and New York City.

Rees collects and re-contextualizes materials from various neighborhoods such as Chinatown and Bushwick to illustrate both the ingenuity and inequality of street life in increasingly urbanized societies. The opening will also include the participation of Thiru Kumar, a.k.a. the Dosa Man, a street vendor who makes masala dosas in Washington Square Park. He will make South Indian street food during the opening. The exhibition will be on view from Thursday 5 March through Monday 9 March, 10am-6pm at A+E Studios. For press or related inquires please contact ROOM EAST at info@roomeast.com

For downloadable exhibition material, click here.