This exhibition brings together the work of eight emergent American artists who exploit this excess materiality of global commerce to mine history, to attune us to the meaning and artifacts of other people’s lives, and, I believe, to point to potential futures. Though informed and formed by history, they reject any nostalgia. Like Edith and Sodom or Orpheus and Eurydice, there is no looking back!
As assemblage art is assimilated into the canon (see contemporary mythology) it hybridizes and folds back on the more traditional plastic arts. The work in this exhibition includes the full spectrum of the found and the fabricated, and in most cases, those distinctions are softened again through artistry. The labor of the artist seems always relevant, intermingled with the labor that produced these original objects in the first place. Did they make this stitch or that one? The intensity of the artist’s hand and this doubling of the making of these objects lend them their charge.
As with an artwork in the studio, unexpected meanings and connections reveal themselves in exhibitions. Seeing these works together, what emerged was a particular concern for the body and protecting it in different stages of life. The incubator, the skin, clothing, shoes, blankets, armor: What will we put on to keep us safe? What will we carry to keep us safe? What will help us in the future? What will liberate us?"
Regen Projects is open by appointment only. Make a reservation to visit the exhibition here.
