The Women, Part 1: Daughters of the Revolution: Women and Collage at Pavel Zoubok

It's no secret that women artists are represented at the galleries and museums in far smaller numbers than the other sex, but here I’d like to focus on two current shows in which women are very much in evidence: Daughters of the Revolution: Women and Collage at Pavel Zoubok Gallery and, in a post to follow this one, The Female Gaze: Women Look at Women at Cheim & Read. Feminism lives! Both galleries have assembled impressive group shows with artists whose work spans two waves of Feminism and then some.

In Daughters of the Revolution (the "Pasted Paper Revolution, " Clement Greenberg's essay description of Cubist collage), the always egalitatian Pavel Zoubok shows 34 artists, many from his gallery's own roster, working with collage. The range is impressive, from such early practitoners of the art as Hannah Hoch and Anne Ryan, to Seventies icons Miriam Schapiro, Hannah Wilke and May Wilson, to contemporary artists like Judy Pfaff, Donna Sharratt and Nora Aslan. Sometimes the work is political and sometimes not; mostly it's on an intimate scale, though there are some impressively large works as well.

Above: To the right as you enter, Elaine Lustig Cohen, Chess 1, 2001, photograph and black sandpaper, app. 16 x 16 inches

Ann Ryan (1889-1954), Collage #640, 1953, mixed-media collage [I can see handmade paper], app. 7 x 5 inches. Image from the gallery website

Miriam Schapiro, My Nosegays Are For Captives, 1976, collage and acrylic on canvas, app. 43 x 34 inches, image from the gallery website; my detail below

Hannah Wilke (1940-1993), Kobenhavn, 1975, kneaded erasers and postcard on painted wood panel, 16 x 18 inches, image from the gallery website; my detail below

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"This generally intimate art form has historically been more accessible to women, who for many years were excluded from a conventional studio practice; collage was the medium that could be done 'on the kitchen table,'” writes Zoubok in the catalog introduction to a conversation between himself and the painter Melissa Meyer. Meyer, who collaborated with Miriam Schapiro on the 1978 essay Waste Not, Want Not: An Inquiry Into What Women Saved and Assembled—Femmage, underscores the truth of that statement, even among women artists in the 20th Century: "I remember thinking . . . of Lee Krasner getting the kitchen table to work on while Jackson Pollock got the studio."

Daughters of the Revolution: Women and Collage is a big show in a small space. And the installation is a collage in itself. Take a look:

Installation view, from the front of the gallery looking toward the back. The images that follow are on the right-hand wall

India Evans, Into the Selves, 2008, mixed-media collage on paper, 22 x 30 inches; image from the gallery website

Louise Nevelson (1899-1988), Untitled, 1983, mixed-media collage, app. 30 x 20 inches; image from the gallery website

The domestic environment, above and below; both images from the gallery website. Above: Addie Herder, Bruges, 1972-74, collage construction, app. 17 x 20 inches

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Below: Louise Erhard, So It's All Come to This, 2008, mixed-media collage on paper, 22 x 30 inches

Another view of the installation wall with three by Judy Pfaff, just to the right of the large works in red (the top work there is Strawberries by Ann Shostrom)

Below: Judy Pfaff, Untitled #33, 2007, ink, found images, acrylic paint, perforated and layered paper, app 14 x 18 inches framed; image from the gallery website

Stepping back and looking over Pavel Zoubok's shoulder to the left back wall, you can just make out a work by Donna Sharrett. It's shown below, along with the rest of the work from that corner

Donna Sharrett, Always, 2006-09, mixed media including rose petals, violin bow string, garnets, dirt and encaustic, 16.5 x 16.5 inches; image from the gallery website. Just to the right of this work are the pieces you see below

Top left: Dodi Wexler, It's Nice to Share Your Home, 2005, mixed media, app. 16 x 28 x 1 inches; Bottom left: Gail Skudera, Veiled Intruder, 1997, mixed-media collage, app. 22 x 20 inches

Center: Nora Aslan, Good Old Games Last Forever, 2008, mixed media collage, 68 x 60 inches; top right, another by Donna Sharrett; bottom right, Miriam Schapiro's My Nosegays are for Captives

Below: Sharrett and Schapiro with Charmion von Wiegand (1896-1893), #154, 1965, mixed-media collage on canvas

In the catalog essay, Zoubok asks Meyer: What do you think has changed with regard to the general attitude toward collage and so-called 'women's work'?

Meyer: My take on the art world in 1978 is that it was not interested in supporting "women's art" and giving women credit for predating anything aesthetically in the canon—but this is now 31 years later, and a lot has changed.

Still, if MoMA put on a collage show whom would it feature? Braque, Cornell, Gris, Picasso, Shwitters, Samaras, Rauschenberg and Rotella, I'd wager. Sons of the Establishment. So Daughters of the Revolution is not only a great exhibition, it's a historically important exhibition. A catalog is available at the gallery ($10) or by mail ($12). Contact the gallery for mail-order specifics.

Daughters of the Revolution: Women and Collage at Pavel Zoubok, at 533 W. 23rd Street, is up through August 14. Summer hours (Mon-Fri) are in effect.

(Next Wednesday, August 6, I'll post Part 2: The Female Gaze: Women Look at Women at Cheim & Read.)

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Marketing Mondays: Enough With the Reference Letters

Fine, but leave me out of it

(Image from the Indianhead Federated Library System, Eay Claire, Wisconsin)

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I just received my third request this month to write a letter of reference. One was for a very talented young artist, another was for a colleague who has a full-time teaching position (and thus more salaried time off via sabbaticals and vacations than I will ever have), and the third was from someone who likes my blog and thinks I'd write "a kick-ass reference letter," never mind that I don’t know this person from Eve.
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With the exception of the young artist, my response was a polite No.
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Am I being a curmudgeon? A bitter artist? A horrible human being? I don’t think so. As a working artist I have very little free time in my day. Those of you who know me understand just how true this is. When I do sit down to write, it’s to work on my blog, which is my gift to the art community. Individual letters of reference or recommendation require time that I simply do not have. I feel so strongly about this subject that I no longer apply for grants requiring these letters (if I apply for a grant at all) because I don't want to add to someone else's time-and-labor load.

Let me be clear: My issue is not with the artists who ask for letters to be written on their behalf; they are simply jumping through the requisite hoops. I want to see the hoops eliminated. This can only happen at the institutional level, because as generous as funding institutions may be to a small number of lucky individuals, they are placing a huge burden on a large part of the art community. So . . .

Dear Grant-funding Institution,

Enough with the reference letters already. Aren't an application, j-pegs, slides, resume, statement, personal narrative, project proposal, budget, and financial records sufficient to help you select a handful of artists from the hundreds, possibly thousands, who will apply to your institution for a grant/scholarship/fellowship/residency each year?

Yes, the artists are expected to put in many hours to create a submission package, I get that, but why require them to drag others into their (typically fruitless) quest? Each application for your largesse requires three to four letters of reference. Let's calculate the time spent on those letters, shall we?
. Each applicant: 4 letters
. Estimated number of applicants: 500 (less for smaller institutions, more for larger)
. That's 2000 letters
. Each letter takes at least an hour to write
. That's 2000 hours
. In other words, that's 50 weeks of unpaid work—a year's job—for each round of applications to your institution alone

Now let's multiply those figures by the hundreds of institutions that are being applied to annually, each with those requisite letters. Let's say for the sake of argument that there are 500 grants to which artists apply each year. If 500 artists apply to each of those grants, we're talking 100,000 letters and thus 100,000 hours of labor to write them. Of course no one person doing is all that writing, but the combined hours add up to 50 years' of unpaid work--a lifetime of work. Each year.

Who's writing these letters? Teaching faculty, arts administrators, artists, dealers and curators, mostly.
. Many professors are now adjunct, so they’re writing these letters on their own time, not during office hours. These people are typically juggling multiple part-time jobs to pay studio rent and health insurance; they need to be doing work that will pay those bills
. Arts administrators are already up to their eyeballs writing grant proposals for the funds that keep their institutions afloat
. Most artists are themselves working outside the studio 20-40 hours a week; any time they take to write a letter of reference cuts into their studio time
. The average dealer works 10 hours a day five days a week, and then spends her "time off" delivering work to clients and making studio visits
. Maybe institution-affiliated curators can take the time to write letters, but independent curators--i.e.people without a regular income--are very likely seeking grant funds for their own projects

I think the appropriate path for you is clear: Abolish the requirement of reference letters. Judge each applicant on her or his own merits, as some grant-funding institutions already do (bless them!). Grants provide essential support to needy and/or talented artists, but not at the expense of others whose needs and talents are being endlessly tapped to help you make your selections.

Respectfully,
Joanne Mattera

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Readers, have you been asked to write reference letters? How have you responded? Have you asked for reference letters? Has it bothered you to do so? Does anyone feel as strongly as I do? Have I gone too far? Feel free to respond anonymously if you're still in grant-application mode, or if you're uncomfortable with the topic but have something to say..
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Talking Chairs

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I have a long rectangular table in my loft that seats 10. It's got a frosted glass surface set within a maple frame. The current chairs--Karim Rashid's Oh chair, ten of which which I bought in 2002-- are translucent white plastic, which create a nice dialog with the frosted glass. I need to replace them, however, because the white plastic is turning a particularly rancid shade of yellow.

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I don't expect plastic to last forever, especially on chairs for which I paid something like $50 apiece, but I was shocked at the dialog I had with the clerk at the Karim Rashid store on West 19th Street when I went in to look at a more upscale Rashid model, the Skool, made of molded plywood with a birch veneer. ( I like Rashid's design sense, so despite the metamorphosing chairs--which are still very comfortable--I wanted to test drive a new model.)

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Oh no. My translucent white chairs have turned translucent yellow
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Me: I have to replace my Oh chairs. They're turning yellow.

Clerk: How long have you had them?
Me: About seven years.
Clerk: Well, I guess it's time.
Me: But I hadn't expected them to turn yellow!
Clerk: Why? Things don't last forever. Besides, you only paid about $50 each.
Me: Price is not the point. They used to be white and how they're yellow.
Clerk: Well, it's not as if they fell apart.
Me: But they turned a different color.
Clerk: Plastic changes color.
Me: Not all plastic changes color in such a short time. If I'd known the plastic would turn so fast, I wouldn't have bought them.
Clerk: Well, if we'd told you that, you wouldn't have bought them, would you?
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It took a moment for me to process that.
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Me: So the company doesn't stand behind its product?
Clerk: For $50 chairs? Don't be ridiculous.
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There was no point in being ridiculous enough to consider the $200-apiece Skool chairs, then, because I need 10 of them. I left. The store lost a sale.
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Next stop: Ikea, where I can get three-quarters of the design for less than one quarter of the price.

Lesson learned: Elegant as it is, I won't be purchasing this molded birch ply Karim Rashid Skool chair, above, but I will consider these from Ikea (I'm leaning toward the one on the right; price: $49).

Titian, Tintoretto, Veronese in Boston

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BOSTON: Some years ago in Venice, I found myself in the early evening in Piazza San Marco looking at a banner proclaiming an exhibition of paintings by Tiziano at the Palazzo Ducale, the Doge's Palace. I happened to be facing the Palazzo, and the ticket booth happened to be not more than 50 feet away. By some small miracle it had no line. The ticket seller explained that entry was by timed ticket and that if I wanted to enter then, I woud have the place pretty much to myself.

"Allora. Un biglietto, per favore." Well, then, one ticket, please," I said, my heart pounding.

Tiziano, Flora, 1516-18, oil on canvas

I have seen Tizianos in Venice at the Accademia, in Florence at the Uffizzi, in Napoli at the Capodimonte, in Madrid at the Prado, in New York City at the Met, and recently at the Museum of Fine Arts in Boston at a wonderful show that's the subject of this post, but nothing came close to the experience of seeing his paintings the way the doge himself did.

Still Titian, Tintoretto and Veronese: Rivals in Renaissance Venice, the current exhibition in Boston, is quite fine and you get two more Venetian painters in the mix.

The premise of this exhibition is that the three powerhouses of Venetian painting, whose lives overlapped for four decades during the 16th Century, were spurred by rivalry to do their best work, often taking on the same sacred and secular subjects in the pursuit of acclaim in Venice, throughout Italy, and in the courts of Europe. Their rich palette and sensuous paint handling defined a Venetian sensibility. All three artists adopted the then-new technique of painting with oil on canvas, which resulted in brilliant color on larger paintings than panel allowed.

Portraits range from popes to the painters themselves, from Last Suppers to martial themes, and from sumptuously dressed figures to nudes. Of course it is the women—Danae and the Venuses—who are naked. (Yeah, they're mythological figures; I get it.) I find the red room where these nudes are installed a bit too "bordello" for my taste. But if I can put my politics aside for a moment, these are pictures about flesh and sex, and the hue suggests fertility and engorgement. Why beat around the bush?

Whatever your feeling about these zaftig objects of the male gaze, we're reminded how standards of beauty have changed.

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The naked and the dressed

Tiziano: Portrait of a Man (Tommaso Mosti?), about 1520, oil on canvas; Venus with a Mirror, 1555, oil on canvas (dimensions not available online)

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Tintoretto: Portrait of a Man Aged Twenty-Six, 1547, oil on canvas; Susannah and the Elders, 1555-56, oil on canvas

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Veronese: Portrait of a Man, 1551-53, oil on canvas; Venus with a Mirror (Venus at her Toilette), mid-1580s, oil on canvas

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I think what touched me most, however, were two Tintoretto self portraits, one made in 1546 when he was 28, a young man challenging your gaze (so unlike the self-absorbed fleshy beauties he and his compatriots painted) and another 42 years later, well dressed but pale and tired. For artists who spend so much time in the studio, time passes while we are alone in solitary pursuit. Who has not one day looked in the mirror and wondered where that young painter went?

Tintoretto (Jacopo Robusti, 1518-94), son of a tintore, a fabric dyer: Self Portrait, about 1546, above, and Self Portrait, 1588, below; both oil on canvas

The Museum of Fine Arts website provides plenty of information. The exhibition is up through August 16. At $25 for adult entry, it's a pricy ticket—but not as pricy as getting to the next venue on the schedule: It will be at the Louvre in the fall.

By the way, you notice now all the portraits (as opposed to the narrative paintings) have one eye centered along the vertical axis of the canvas? Read more about it here in The Centered Eye, a post I wrote when this blog was in its infancy.

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Sign of the Times

Last Thursday at the corner of 23rd Street and 10th Avenue

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Marketing Mondays: Your Turn

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Palio flags. Image from Wikipedia
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Today's Marketing Mondays is your opportunity to unfurl your flag, toot your own horn, and generally get the word out about what you're doing professionally this summer. I invite you to fill up the Comments section with news of the exhibitions and events you're participating in, URLs for your websites and blogs, and whatever successes you'd like to share.

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Helen Miranda Wilson at Victoria Munroe

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BOSTON: I am a fan of Helen Miranda Wilson's geometries. I've seen her oil-on-panel paintings at DC Moore in New York and at Albert Merola in Provincetown. Recently I saw her framed gouache-on-paper paintings at the Victoria Munroe Fine Art on Newbury Street in Boston, where her solo show ran May 14-June 20. The townhouse's two rooms provided an intimate viewing space for the small works.

The simplicity of the elements—blocks and stripes, and now spirally concentric circles and ovals—allow the viewer to concentrate on the color (beautiful, seemingly improvised), structure (repetitive, meditative), and the composition (mandala-like yet vertiginously active) in a way that melds the esthetic and the spiritual. Her show was called Halos. Here, take a look:
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The stairway to the gallery

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The front gallery, with work over the mantel, below
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Moving around the front gallery, we look through the hallway to the smaller back room. the work to the right in the doorway is shown below:
Castalia, 2008, app 21 x 18, framed


Top and bottom images taken from the Victoria Munroe Fine Art website

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Darra Keeton and David Headley at Drawer 158 in Tribeca

Drawer 158: Home as gallery

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Among the many things I love about New York is its entrepreneurial spirit. Case in point: Drawer 158. Located at 158 Franklin Street, it's a loft--a private home--that becomes an open-to-the-public gallery on Saturdays from 1-5. It's run by Karen Cantrell and Andrea Callard.
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The current exhibition, up through this Saturday, July 18, features the work of Darra Keeton and David Headley, both excellent painters (and both friends of mine). If you're in town, head on over to take a look. Questions? E-mail the gallery at drawer158@gmail.com.

Both painters ply structure against organic development. For Headley, showing work from a series called Parisienne Walkways, that's typically a geometry of dot and line laid over a saturated ground of fluid but controlled color. The result pulls you in, giving you the choice of paced perambulation or a delicious splashabout in the deeper space of the picture. Artists who work on paper, take note: This work on paper is cleverly mounted on a backing and affixed to a panel.

David Headley: Installation above, with paintings from his Parisienne Walkways series

Below, from the series: 3-16-2008 (blue spots), mixed media on paper, mounted on wooden panel,16 x 12 inches

Keeton's structure is more organic. She creates tangled grids as she turns her painting this way or that, allowing the paint to flow vertically or horizontally. Sometimes one direction prevails, and the effect is more like a waterfall, or an explosion of fireworks. These paintings are as airy as mesh, but make no mistake: they're as tough as they are beautiful.

Keeton's works on paper are tacked to the wall. In a conventional gallery I'm not usually so keen on pushpins but here, in a loft that is transformed one day a week into a gallery (with excellent lighting, I might add), the effect is intimate and immediate. A larger acrylic on canvas painting in the dining room, in the unexpected palette of lavender and yellow, is simply beautiful.

Darra Keeton: a wall of paintings on paper;

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Writing My Memoir #4, 2008, acrylic and gouache on paper, 30 x 22 inches

Darra Keeton:
Fretwork, 2008, acrylic on canvas, 60 x 60 inches

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Here Comes the Judge

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The white upper-middle-class male point of view may be the default position in politics (and the benighted repugnican viewpoint its radical extreme), but the default needs to reset. Scootch over, boys.
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Let's see more "wise Latinas," "uppity negroes," ambitious African-Americans, political transvestites, "diesel dykes," lesbian moms, married gay couples, in-charge Asian-Americans, assertive Native Americans, unintimidated women of all ages and stripes--and many others who bring ethnicity, gender, race, age, sexual orientation and culture to bear on decisions that affect a society in which all of the above outnumber the defacto model.
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Click here for more info on the Sotomayor poster.

More on "Wise Latina"
. The blogosphere's own C-Monster writes Just What is a 'Wise Latina' Anyway? for Time
. Eugene Robinson's Whose Identity Politics in the Washington Post
. Judge Sotomayor in her own words
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Marketing Mondays: How to Reject a Gallery

BUT NO THANKS

Sometimes the shoe is on the other foot, and instead of receiving a turndown, it is you who must do the turning down.

Here's reader C.M.:

I was wondering how to tell a gallery you are not interested in being represented by them or being part of their upcoming programming. Doing it gracefully is proving to be quite difficult. How much info should you give, how much is too little or too much?

First of all, this is a great problem to have, no? But as C.M. suggests, not all artist/gallery fits are good. So I'm going to talk not just about how to decline an invitation, but about why you might want to decline. Generally when responding, less is more.

. Is it about a difference in esthetics?
This is easy: I like you and your program, but I don’t think our sensibilities are a good match.

. Is it about the terms by which a gallery expects to do business?
You want a gallery that has good business practices: advertises, makes sales, has a good online presence, holds the best damn openings in town. If they don't do enough of what you need, let them know: I'm accustomed to a situation in which my work will be promoted online and in print, and in which the gallery handles things like pickup and delivery and framing.
. . . . . OK, so this is a difficult time, and some galleries are cutting back to be able to stay in business, but don’t believe a gallery that says "it is gallery policy" to do/not do this or that. Artists who sell better, who have a higher professional profile, typically get more. If you like the gallery but need more than they’re offering you, ask for more. If they can't give it to you, thank them for their interest in you and suggest that perhaps when the economy picks up we can revisit the possiblity of working together.

. . . . . But I would ask you: Does a situation like this have to be black and white? Can you participate in an occasional exhibition without committing fully? That gives both you and the gallery a chance to try each other out.

. Is it about the reputation of the gallery?
If it's got a bad reputation, your response is a no-brainer: It appears that we don't have the same goals. Thank you for your interest in my work. Do not let yourself be cajoled into going against your research--or your instinct.

. Is it about the personalities involved?
If you don't trust the dealer or you really don’t like her/him, that's not the person you want to be involved with. A relationship with a dealer is not sexual (not usually, anyway) but it is certainly personal. If you don’t like the person, that's going to be a hard relationship to maintain. Don’t let yourself be bullied. How have you turned down dates? That's the approach you need to do here, because it really is about personal preference.

. Is it about the level of the gallery?
If it's showing a step-above-hobbyists, that's another no-brainer: I need to be with a gallery whose roster of artists is more closely aligned with my exhibition history and collector base.
. . . . . If it's a good emerging gallery and you’re a mid-level artist, that's a harder call. Does the gallery get reviewed locally or regionally? Are the sales good? If you feel your career is too advanced for the gallery, that may be exactly why they want you. Dealers are looking to move up, just like artists. They may be looking to you to be the person who helps them do that. Assuming you respond to the the esthetic and the folks involved, ask for more: the Art in America or Art Forum ad, a catalog, inclusion in their next art fair.
. . . . . If they say no and you feel there's nothing in it for you, say no: I like the gallery and I like you, but I'm afraid you're going to have to spend so much time and effort developing the careers of your emerging artists that my needs will be overlooked.

Red Flags
. Is the gallery known for never paying on time? If so, don’t assume you will be the exception
. Is the dealer unwilling to share the names of the collectors who acquire your work?A an artist/dealer relationship is based in large part on trust
. Is the dealer a screamer (watch how he treats the staff); a schemer (do you hear stories of artists being pitted against one another); woefully disorganized (payments are late, work gets "lost" or actually misplaced, inventory records are incomplete); a manic type who needs everything yesterday then oh-never-minds after you have killed yourself to deliver?
. Have you heard rumors of the dealer selling at a "discount" but learn the collectors have actually paid full price?
. Does the gallery ask you for money?
. . . . . You may have to ask around to get some of these answers, but the artist information hotline—i.e. conversation, gossip, e-mail inquiries—may yield answers. I have often asked artists about Gallery A, or even a friendly Gallery B about A. I've also e-mailed artists who I know used to be involved in a gallery; I tell them I'm contemplating getting involved with Gallery A and I wonder if they would be willing to share with me, confidentially of course, any insights that might help me make a good decision. People have done the same with me.

Bottom line: If you feel you must turn down a gallery and you're really stuck for words, thank them for their interest and say simply, I just don’t think we’re a good fit. They'll understand that. That's what they say to artists all the time.

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(Un) Common Threads, Part 2: Group Show at Elizabeth Harris

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In Part 2 of Common Threads, we follow a line from Edward Shalala's photographs in the previous post to his tangible work in the group exhibition, By a Thread at the Elizabeth Harris Gallery (up through July 24).
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In a series of four works, Shalala shows the canvas reduced first to thread and then to its ultimate entity: dust. From there the pendulum swings in a more material direction--the artists in the exhibition are connected by the filament and fabric--and then back to deconstruction . Let's start in the back gallery, where Shalala's four canvas reductions are on display. Here's one:

Edward Shalala, Untitled #7, 2009, canvas dust dropped onto contact paper, 18 x 21 inches (image from the gallery website)

Moving around the gallery, we see Mary Carlson's blood spatters rendered in copper wire and Mike Asente's giant embroidery. Did I mention the show is eclectic? Here the element of roundness, and the graphic quality of red, black and white hold the room together.

Mary Carlson, Wiresplat 1, 2009, crocheted copper wire, 79 x 124 x 1.5 inches; detail below. Mike Asente's small embroideries are on the wall around the corner

Mike Asente, Holy Rays, 2009, embroidery floss on linen, steel hoop, 46 x 50 x 1.5 inches; on wall: Boom, 2009, embroidery on non-woven interfacing, 10 x 13 inches

Moving from the back gallery to the front, we see Carlson's splatter sculpture in the distance and Elisa D'Arrigo's handstitched sculpture on the wall. Then we continue around the gallery with more work by D'Arrigo, hangings by Leslie Dill, and a deconstructed piece by Elana Herzog. With these three artists in particular, I'm moved to consider the Norns of myth: the first spins the thread of life, the second fashions it into fabric of individual texture and length, and the third snips the thread when the time comes. Take a look:

From back gallery to front, above: Carlson's Wiresplat 1 and Elisa D'Arrigo's stitched sculpture, which you can see better below:

Elisa D'Arrigo, Terra Cotta 1, 2009, cloth thread, acrylic paint, acrylic medium, pigments, 20 x 18 x 3.75 inches (image from the gallery website)

Panning the gallery: two more small sculptures from D'Arrigo and two "thread poems" by Leslie Dill. Both artists are known for their stitched works

Below: Dill's I was Born with a Veil, 2003, silkscreen, fabric, thread, 90 x 45 inches (image from the gallery website)

Panning the front gallery. More below about column at right

Holly Miller, Snap #18, 2008, acrylic paint and thread on canvas, 36 x 36 inches (image from the gallery website)

Mary Carlson, Wiresplat 2, 2006-2009, crocheted copper wire, 56 x 140 x 1.5 inches; right, Elana Herzog, Untitled, Column Series #3, 2009, stapled fabric on constructed column

Below: a detail of the work (image from the gallery website).
And that takes us back to deconstruction--a nice denouement for a show in which materiality is the theme.

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