Jack O’Brien: Cascade

Capitain Petzel is pleased to announce Jack O’Brien’s debut solo exhibition at the gallery, opening on January 11, 2025.

For the exhibition, O’Brien will present a striking suspended sculpture that merges two grand pianos into a singular, floating form, hovering mid-air within the gallery space. The two pianos are stripped of their traditional function yet retain their physical grandeur. Between them is a striking void, a central negative space that becomes the focal point of the composition, evoking both a sense of dialogue and rupture. By suspending these instruments and cutting a void at their core, O’Brien reimagines them as objects of silence and memory, rather than tools of sound.

Alongside this centerpiece, smaller-scale works created from repurposed materials partly sourced in Berlin will also be on view. These works reflect O’Brien’s sensitivity to material histories and his interest in the interplay between the personal and the found, weaving local narratives into his broader exploration of space and form. O’Brien’s work is grounded in a subtle interplay of material, personal experience, and cultural critique. His installations evoke a sense of precarity, reflecting both the physical and social fragility of the structures he constructs. O’Brien is particularly interested in destabilizing the fixed nature of objects, forcing rigid materials like metal and glass into confrontations that evoke a sense of unease. Through these clashes, the artist challenges notions of form and function with works that appear charged with nervous energy, as if on the verge of collapse. This precariousness becomes a metaphor for the broader, often fraught, dynamics of identity, particularly within the context of queer cultural histories and the lineage of queer abstraction.