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Charles Harlan
The Gate
June 8–July 14, 2013

39 Great Jones Street
New York, NY 10012

If your house were to fall down, what would be left? The sheetrock will turn to dust. The wood floors will rot. Metal studs will rust away, and your pipes will be scavenged for scrap. But the marble countertop in your bathroom will last forever, remaining intact for centuries wedged within the strata, as an inexplicable witness to your former home.

Near the River Boyne in Ireland is Newgrange, a neolithic temple distinct for its entrance. The doorway is flanked by two stone pillars topped with a lintel. Above the lintel is a roof box–a window-like opening over the door. Every year on the winter solstice the rays of the rising sun stream through the portal, illuminating a small altar hidden deep within the mound.

Separated by 35 miles and 5,000 years in the Merrion Square area of Dublin are the city’s famous Georgian doors. Typical of the architecture of that period, the doors are brightly painted, flanked by two pillars, and topped with a lintel. Above each doorway is a fanlight window, depicting the rays of the rising sun.

Presented in this exhibition are sculptures existing somewhere between altars and bathroom sinks.

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