Isaac Brest

Originally trained in film but later moving into photography and installation, Isaac Brest scrutinizes the ways in which cultural artifacts are sold. When he formed The Still House Group with Alex Perweiler in 2007, he began his concept-driven criticism of contemporary art practice. He often works with industrial materials such as sheet rock, Plexiglas, drywall, and plywood—he re-contextualizes these materials by putting them in an artist’s frame or repackaging them in ways that are susceptible to commerce. His work demands a closer look at the ways in which the purity of a material or concept might mutate when it occupies an unpredictable context. A baggie of dust—accrued by filing down a stone from the Pantheon, drywall, and joint compound can be sold in the art context, and Brest affirms that the artfulness of creation is as important as a sales pitch.

Brest is often featured in group shows with other members of The Still House Group including Brad Troemel, Jack Greer, Brendan Lynch, and Nick Darmstaedter, among others. His artwork has exhibited at the Zabludowicz Collection, London, Museo Británico Americano, Mexico City, Fondazione Museo Pino Pascali, Italy, and The Dia Foundation, New York, among other international galleries.