Catalyst Contemporary presents “Have & Have-not” a solo exhibition featuring the work of Venezuelan artist Alberto Cavalieri, best known for his large-scale metal sculptures that echo the shape of untethered knots. The exhibition shows a selection of works from the last two decades. In the gallery are twisting sculptures and blocks stacked in symbolic towers and piles, coming together to highlight Cavalieri’s turn towards symbolic sculptures that examine monetary structure, the network of cultural values, and the global consumption of goods. The work featured at Catalyst are poured and cast iron constructions from his earlier works.

Cavalieri’s knot sculptures run the gamut in material and style from the earliest welded and painted steel forms, which seek to hide the method of their making, to highly engineered loops that reveal their fabricated construction. Contorted forms balance precariously defying the possibilities of such heavy and solid structures. At times elegant and polished and other times conveying a look of decay and mangled parts, the artist seeks to reconcile oppositional forces not only materially but also symbolically. These decaying construction forms can be understood as a cle