Charles Long: More Like a Dream Than a Scheme was organized by Vesela Sretenovic of the David Winton Bell Gallery. The exhibition, featuring recent sculptural works, will be on view at SITE Santa Fe from September 24, 2005 to Janaury 8, 2006.

Long is best know for his 1990s pop-abstraction and especially his collaboration with the British pop-band Stereolab, which resulted in a number of interactive, audio-sculptural installations.However, since 2003 the artist has returned to an investigation of immobile, abstracted sculptures, which combine found objects, debris, and other materials. While in his earlier work, the amorphous and organic blob-like shapes made of soft materials such as molding clay, rubber, or plastic were evocative of skin and flesh, in the recent body of work, the large, often bizarre, skeletal structures are more reminiscent of magical, polymorphous creatures such as talismans or totem poles. Before the focus was on bodily awareness, sensorial pleasure, and the interactivity of subject-object; now the focus is on the solitary object, suggestive of human solitude and vulnerability but also independency and inner strength. When placed in close proximity and illuminated with stark lighting—as in the current exhibition—the solitary objects are joined together and emanate a new energy of hope and enchantment.

More Like a Dream Than a Scheme is comprised of free-standing assemblage and lamp-like objects hung from the ceiling and walls, creating a magical play of light and shadows throughout the space. Densely installed, the exhibition elicits the feeling of a magical underworld. The title itself—More Like a Dream Than a Scheme—further underlines a dreamy and poetic quality of the works.

Long currently lives in Los Angeles and teaches at the University of California-Riverside. Born in Long Branch, NJ, in 1958, he holds a BFA from Philadelphia College of Art and an MFA from Yale University. Long has shown regularly with Tanya Bonakdar Gallery in New York and Shoshana Wayne Gallery in Los Angeles. He had a solo show at the Orange County Museum of Art in North Beach, CA, in 2003 and has participated in group exhibitions Japan, Australia, Sweden, and various U.S. venues.

A 42- page catalogue—with essays by Vesela Sretenovic and Gregory Volk and a conversation with the artist—accompanies the exhibition.