Riot Material

Art. Word. Thought.

  • Home
  • Riot Material Magazine
    • About Riot Material
    • Entering The Mind
    • Contact
    • Masthead
    • Categories >
      • Art
      • Artist
      • Books
      • Cinema Disordinaire
      • Film
      • Interview
      • Jazz
      • Riot Sounds
      • Thought
      • More   >
        • Architecture
        • Image
        • Records
        • The Line
        • The New Word
        • That Evening Sun
        • The Natural World
        • Video
  • Art
    • Art Reviews
  • Books
    • Book Reviews
  • Film
    • Film Reviews
  • Records
    • Jazz Reviews
    • All Reviews
  • Riot Sounds
  • Cinema Disordinaire
    • Riot Cinema

Material as Metaphor

July 31, 2017 By Nancy Kay Turner

at Craft and Folk Art Museum, Los Angeles
Reviewed by Nancy Kay Turner

“What I am trying to get across is that material is a means of communication.”
Anni Albers

An exhibition entitled Material as Metaphor, currently at the Craft and Folk Art Museum, brings together eleven contemporary West Coast sculptors (Lloyd Hamrol, Victoria May, Lisa C Soto, Joel Allen, Miyoshi Barosh, Mary Little, Phyllis Green, Christy Matson, Senga Nengudi, Kay Whitney, May Wilson) who mostly use non-traditional materials such as industrial felt, vinyl, pantyhose, found thrift store crocheted blankets, rubber inner tubes, and other organic or manufactured items to create the predominately soft, sensuous, and idiosyncratic free standing and wall pieces.

Gallery view. All images courtesy of Craft and Folk Art Museum.

The only disappointment of an otherwise inventive, engrossing, and beautifully installed and curated show is Lloyd Hamrol’s (the grand old man of this group) site- specific piece entitled “Cascade,” 2017. It is comprised of large disc’s of neutral burnt umber industrial felt that suggests the flow of a waterfall by overlapping the flat mesa-like discs as they amble, one laid over the other, from up high to the floor. “Cascade” has antecedents in both Lynda Benglis’ poured latex gray sculptures from the late sixties, which slide down the wall to puddle and harden on the gallery floor, and Robert Morris’ work in industrial felt from the late sixties to the mid seventies. Unfortunately, this understated sculpture is displayed in the lobby on the ground floor where I saw children sitting on it. It would have benefitted from another less busy placement alongside the others on the second floor.

Open Cage

Heading into the upstairs gallery, the first works one sees is Victoria May’s free standing sculpture that has the oxymoronic title “Open Cage” (2011-13, spring tempered steel, pins, cotton twill tape, assembled hardware) that is reminiscent of the “cage crinolines” worn by Victorian and Southern women in the nineteenth century. These undergarments were constructed of rings of steel attached with string and were nearly architectural in design to help distribute the enormous weight of the hoop gowns in order to make them bearable. May literally uses the same materials here to construct her curvaceous, looming but ultimately strapped-down image of a dressmaker’s dummy totem pole. It is covered with translucent beige fabric, thus allowing the viewer to see both the inside and the outside simultaneously – hence an “open” cage. This is a delightful riff on the tyranny of beauty and the restrictions that women have had to endure in the past, and also in the present, to be considered beautiful and fashionable.

Three of her other three pieces shown nearby are wall reliefs and all are witty and humorous, especially the monochromatic “Large Fetish” (2014). Elegantly constructed only with used inner tubes and thread, it is quite gorgeous and almost looks like an undulating landscape. The title makes me think that perhaps it is a sly nod to Robert Mapplethorpe and his infamous homoerotic pictures (which often involve subjects swathed in rubber outfits).

Large Fetish
RSVP Revereie A

Other works also reference the human body, none more amusing than Senga Nengudi’s “RSVP Revereie A,” (nylon pantyhose, sand, mesh screen, 2011), which might be a self-portrait of sorts. Nengudi cleverly uses the different beiges, browns and blacks of the pantyhose to great effect here – especially in the creative way she has sculpted curly hair. There are allusions to some possibly saggy (sand filled) breasts, and skinny legs. It is an altogether charming use of everyday materials to suggest the frailties and vulnerabilities (panty hose can tear) of the female human body.

Slunk

May Wilson’s idiosyncratic “Slunk,” (vinyl, carbon fiber, steel strapping, 2017) reminds me of the alien heptapods (minus four of their legs) from the movie “Arrival.” Sleek and beautifully crafted, there are three black vinyl tube-like legs, slightly wobbly, which are attached by yellow steel strapping towards the top. At each top end there is a pinkish “cuff” slightly open. About the size of a five-foot six person, this slightly goofy piece is very animated and you expect it to saunter off at any moment.

Rainbow of Tears

Miyoshi Barosh’s “Rainbow of Tears,” (found afghans and polyester fiberfill, 2015) is relentlessly optimistic and wildly colorful, in direct contradiction to the title which refers to the afghans being relegated to thrift stores. The press release says “…her materials symbolize unrequited love and devotion, selfless labor, and useless attempts to cheer others up despite the reality of a harsh world.” This is not what I would have presumed from the bold and highly patterned, pendulous forms (meant to replicate teardrops but suggesting other forms such as guitars). In this installation, where most of the sculptures are muted in color, or even monochromatic, this feisty sculpture demands and gets much attention.

In direct contrast are designer Mary Little’s gorgeously quiet wall hangings literally made from artist unbleached canvas (usually used as a surface for paintings) and thread. Irish born (hence her titles), Mary Little has been a furniture maker and so these cloth sculptures, which lie flat on the wall, are a happy and successful departure. “Flanagan,” (2016) is based on a slightly irregular grid (reminds me of some of Eva Hesse’s latex grid pieces), and the light and shadows here are an important player in the delectation of the work. “O’Dogherty” (2016-7) is a giant ruffle of a piece, with a slightly frayed cut edge, which resembles cilia, adding to the visual pleasure here. Stunning craftsmanship is again evident for my favorite piece entitled “Dunbar,” which looks like a shroud. In the center of the piece are folds/pouches that are evenly spaced and sag towards the floor. There are delicate parallel lines that connect with the pouches – almost creating an optical illusion effect. The image that is created by the repetition of the folds suggests a human body, or a shroud covering a body. Little’s heroic restraint with her work is quite rewarding and ultimately very spiritual.

Mary Little

Kay Whitney’s sophisticated body of work with materials such as plywood, felt, grommets, steel rings and eyebolts is very reminiscent of Robert Morris’s industrial felt sculptures from the sixties and seventies (although Morris often used whole sheets of industrial felt and Whitney uses preformed long thin fingers of felt). Whitney, in her large free standing work entitled “Vault and Big BB,” (2016) attaches felt strips from the ceiling to hang down and fan out – much the same as Morris did years ago – in a kind of maypole shape. At the base, the free hanging strips of felt attach to small plywood tables themselves, then on a platform. Whitney’s other three sculptures are all attached to the wall with wire and they fan out gracefully –almost like upside-down suspension bridges. All of Whitney’s vibrant works elegantly carve out space, as the long, ribbon-like felt pieces transform into three-dimensional drawings. The many interstices in all of the works and the interplay of light and shadow are artfully exploited by hanging the work three inches from the wall is essential. Theatrically lit and beautifully installed, these are undeniably dramatic and stately.

The most traditional of all these artists is Christy Matson, whose handwoven tapestries most resemble refined and muted generally abstracted paintings.

Christy Matson’s Birds of Paradise

Created on a jacquard loom, these polished works stand out with their subtle and understated use of color. “Untitled (Pyramid)” (2017, cotton, wool, linen and natural dye) references the shaped canvases of the sixties by stacking square textile covered surfaces in a way that they resemble a pyramid. The delicate, nuanced surface reminds me of the stained canvases of Helen Frankenthaler, as one color appears to seep into another. In this cacophonous group of sculptures, whose structures are typically cobbled together from disparate parts (sewn, stitched, tied, stapled, bolted, and wrapped), these works can seem almost out of place – like a quiet guest at a noisy dinner party.

Studies in Convulsion

One case in point, situated across from the classic Matson weavings, is yet another sculpture from the wildly versatile Victoria May. Called “Studies in Convulsion,” this 2014 work is composed of tire inner tubes, thread, handmade silk and polyester cording. Four abstracted but vaguely figurative tubelike soft sculptures are placed on a ledge at angles that suggest interaction. Each “figure” has a tangle of yellow cords spilling messily out of the top and bottom of the piece. Reclining on a ledge, these pieces resemble nothing more than bored teenagers slouching around somewhere and tied up in knots inside. It seems an apt metaphor for human existence, as we all seem to be trying to hold it together. It reminds me of a few lines from the Yeats’ poem, “Second Coming:” Things fall apart; the centre cannot hold

For all of these artists the meaning of their work is directly related to the materials they use, be they found, manufactured or created. This is a delightful and thoughtful exhibit that is worth seeing.

Kay Whitney (left to right): Vault and Big BB, Skyhook, and Colorless Green Ideas Sleep Furiously
Victoria May: Materials Flow Management
Mary Wilson: Fly’s Eye 2

~

Nancy Kay Turner is an artist, arts writer and educator who has written for ARTWEEK, ARTSCENE and Visions Magazine. She fled NewYork for the sun and fun of California and has never looked back.

  • Click to share on Facebook (Opens in new window) Facebook
  • Click to share on LinkedIn (Opens in new window) LinkedIn
  • Click to share on Reddit (Opens in new window) Reddit
  • Click to email a link to a friend (Opens in new window) Email

Filed Under: Art, The Line

Comments

  1. Joel S. Allen says

    August 1, 2017 at 5:33 pm

    Ouch. Not even a mention.

The Line

A poetic interpretation of Anselm Kiefer's Exodus, at Los Angeles Marciano Art Foundation, is at Riot Material.

On Wing With Word Through Anselm Kiefer’s Exodus

Gagosian at Marciano Art Foundation, Los Angeles (through 25 March 2023) by Rachel Reid Wilkie Los Angeles poet Rachel Reid Wilkie was given the task of walking into Anselm Kiefer’s Exodus — a literally monumental exhibition, in that each of these paintings are upwards of 30’ tall — and addressing the colossal artworks “cold,” as in […]

Detail of Henry Taylor, "Warning shots not required," 2011. At Riot Material magazine.

Henry Taylor’s B Side: Where Mind Shapes Itself to Canvas

Henry Taylor: B Side at MOCA Grand, Los Angeles (through 30 April 2023) Reviewed by Eve Wood Ages ago when there were LP records and 45s, the B side of a popular single made allowances for experimentation and could be counted on as an alternative vision to the more mainstream and compulsory hit single. B […]

Songbook of a Bygone Dead: Bob Dylan’s The Philosophy of Modern Song

Reviewed by Dan Chiasson The Philosophy of Modern Song by Bob Dylan Simon & Schuster, 352pp., $28.93 NYR Bob Dylan’s new book, The Philosophy of Modern Song, is a kind of music-appreciation course open to auditors and members of the general public. It is best savored one chapter, one song, at a time, while listening to the […]

Smoking the Bible by Chris Abani

Words To Wrap Around A Dying Brother

Smoking the Bible Reviewed by Rhony Bhopla Smoking the Bible by Chris Abani Copper Canyon Press, 96pp., $15.99 HR Chris Abani’s autobiographical book of poems, Smoking the Bible, centers on the relationship of two brothers growing up in Nigeria with an Igbo father and an English mother. The poems, which incorporate the Igbo language along […]

Grant Wallace, “Through Evolution Comes Revelation.” at Riot Material magazine.

Communication Breakdown: Grant Wallace, His Heirs & the Legacy of a Forgotten Genius

Grant Wallace: Over the Psychic Radio at Ricco/Maresca Gallery, NYC (through 3 December 2022) By Michael Bonesteel Freelance writer and editor Deborah Coffin of Albany, California, was in graduate school at the University of California, Berkeley in 1997 when she first encountered street musician Brian Wallace at a party. “I had a friend who knew Brian,” […]

The Joshua Tree Talk

A Conversation on Dzogchen C von Hassett & Rachel Reid Wilkie at Joshua Tree Retreat Center 

Louise Bourgeois: What Is The Shape of This Problem?

at University of Southern California, Fisher Museum of Art. (through 3 December 3, 2022) Reviewed by Margaret Lazzari Louise Bourgeois is widely recognized for her sculptures and installations, but Louise Bourgeois: What is The Shape of This Problem is a wonderful opportunity to immerse yourself in her perhaps-lesser-known prints, fabric work and writings. This exhibit contains over […]

Moonage Daydream Conveys More Myth Than Man

Moonage Daydream Dir. Brett Morgan Reviewed by Nicholas Goldwin As one of the greatest shapeshifters in the expansive history of rock music, it seems only fitting that the documentary with David Bowie as its subject never seems content to express the trials, tribulations and artistic triumphs of Bowie in any one fixed way. This is […]

Carnación di Rocío Molina, at Riot Material Magazine.

On Binding: Notes from Venice

Bienalle Arte and Bienalle Danza, Venice 2022 By Allyn Aglaïa Chest bound, lips sealed, I walked through Venice alone, quiet, and: thought about narratives that bind us to erotic binds

Mohammad Barrangi's Guardians of Eden (Dreamscape #8), at Riot Material magazine.

Transcendence Beyond Erasure in Mohammad Barrangi’s Dreamscape

at Advocartsy, Los Angeles (thru 5 November 2022) Reviewed by Christopher Ian Lutz Fantasy requires a symbolic vehicle to transport a character from the real world into the imaginary realm, where the laws of reality are subverted or obscured to justify an otherwise absurd event. The artist might depict the vehicle as a real object […]

Soul Crash: Our Slow, Inexorable Release Into the Metaverse

by Sue Halpern The Metaverse: And How It Will Revolutionize Everything by Matthew Ball Liveright 352pp., $18.89 NYR In October 2021, when Mark Zuckerberg announced that Facebook would now be called Meta and its business interests would be pivoting to the metaverse, there was almost universal confusion: most observers had no idea what he was […]

green tara

Pointing the Staff at the Old Man

A wisdom transmission by Samaneri Jayasāra Excerpted from —  Advice from the Lotus Born  from the chapter “Pointing the Staff at the Old Man” Translated by Eric Pema Kunsang Rangjung Yeshe Publications, 184pp., $21.95 . .

Margaret Lazzari’s "Shimmer." From the exhibition "Breathing Space."

Margaret Lazzari’s Luminous Breathing Space

at George Billis Gallery, Los Angeles (through 8 October 2022) Reviewed by Nancy Kay Turner “Things are not what they seem: nor are they otherwise.” –Buddha Margaret Lazzari’s luminous solo exhibition of paintings, entitled Breathing Space, were painted during the pandemic, and the exhibition title is indeed significant. It’s defined as a respite, a hiatus, or an […]

From Phil Tippet's Mad God, reviewed at Riot Material magazine.

Nihilism Births Its Own Interminable Hell

Mad God Dir. Phil Tippett Reviewed by Nicholas Goldwin Technically astonishing and immersive to a fault, director Phil Tippett successfully demonstrates that thirty years of relentless dedication to your craft can lead to cinematic innovations even his old stomping grounds – the sets of Star Wars and Jurassic Park – have yet to catch up. […]

A Look Back on an Iconoclast: Art Critic Dave Hickey

by Jarrett Earnest Far From Respectable: Dave Hickey and His Art by Daniel Oppenheimer University of Texas Press, 141 pp., $24.95 The Invisible Dragon: Essays on Beauty, Revised and Expanded by Dave Hickey University of Chicago Press, 123 pp., $15.00 (paper) Air Guitar: Essays on Art and Democracy by Dave Hickey Art Issues Press, 215 […]

John Lurie’s The History of Bones

Reviewed by Cintra Wilson The History of Bones: A Memoir by John Lurie Random House, 435 pp., $28.00 NYRB It was 1989 when I saw John Lurie on TV in a late-night advertisement for the new Lounge Lizards album, Voice of Chunk, which was “not available in stores” and selling exclusively through an 800 number. Operators were standing […]

Marlene Dumas, "Losing (Her Meaning)," 1988. At Riot Material magazine.

Marlene Dumas’ Masks of Inborn Gods

open-end, at Palazzo Grassi, Venice (through 8 January 2023) Reviewed by Arabella Hutter von Arx Four relatively small artworks greet the visitor in the first room of the Marlene Dumas exhibit, open-end, at Palazzo Grassi. D-rection shows a young man contemplating his rather large and purple erection. A bluish white face and a brown face unite […]

Clarice Lispector

Baffling the Sphinx: The Enigmatic World of Clarice Lispector

Reviewed by John Biscello Água Viva by Clarice Lispector New Directions Publishing 88pp., $14.95 Too Much of Life: The Complete Crônicas by Clarice Lispector New Directions Publishing 864pp., $29.95 The word is my fourth dimension –Clarice Lispector And on the eighth and endless day, where the bottomless hallelujah meets Ouroboros, God created Clarice Lispector. Maybe. […]

Donna Ferrato "Diamond, Minneapolis, MN 1987." At Riot Material magazine

Donna Ferrato’s Magnificent Holy

at Daniel Cooney Fine Art, NYC (through July 29 2022) Reviewed by Phoebe Hoban The small scale of Donna Ferrato’s snapshot-like black-and-white photographs belies their personal and political power. Whether they document the medical sinks and shelves in a now-shuttered Texas abortion clinic, or hone in on the badly bruised face of a domestic violence […]

Darcilio Lima Unknown Lithograph, 1972. At Riot Material magazine.

Magia Protetora: The Art of Luciana Lupe Vasconcelos and Darcilio Lima

at the Buckland Museum of Witchcraft and Magick, Cleveland OH (through 30 September 2022) Curated by Stephen Romano Gallery Reviewed by Christopher Ian Lutz The extension of a lineage occurs not merely by the repetition of form, but by the intersection of conservation and revolution. Transformation is fundamental to preserving the essence of a given tradition’s rituals and […]

Eve Wood's A Cadence for Redemption, written in the fictive voice of Abraham Lincoln, is excerpted at Riot Material magazine.

Songs For Our Higher Selves

A Cadence for Redemption: Conversations With Abraham Lincoln by Eve Wood Del Sol Press, 46pp., $5.99 Employing the fictive voice of a former president, Eve Wood shifts the perspective on the happenings of our times – where all indicators point to the slow, inexorable collapse of the American Experiment – to the one man who […]

The Clear, Crisp Taste of Cronenberg

Crimes of the Future Reviewed by Anna Shechtman and D.A. Miller Neon NYRB A line from Crimes of the Future, David Cronenberg’s latest film, has been trailing it around with the campy insistence of an old-fashioned ad campaign: “Surgery is the new sex.” On receiving this information, a skeptical Saul Tenser, played by Viggo Mortensen, asks, “Does there have […]

Georganne Deen, How to prepare people for your weirdness (Painting for a gifted child) 2022

Conjuring a Divine Silence in Georganne Deen’s The Lyric Escape

at Rory Devine Fine Art, Los Angeles (through 6 August) Reviewed by Eve Wood Albert Camus once famously asked, “Should I kill myself, or have a cup of coffee?” One can only hope that this was a rhetorical question, yet however ironic, it is still a sentiment worth pondering, especially considering today’s current socio-political climate […]

Pesticides in our foods inevitably enter the body and will have the intended effect of killing the organism. Which is to say you are certain to become diseased and evenutally die from the longterm ingestion of industrial pesticides.

A Strictly Organic Diet is Good Enough to Save Your Life

A chapter excerpt from Entering the Mind, the new book from C von Hassett which speaks to an ageless way of resting the mind in meditation to both recognize and stabilize in its already Awakened state. Yet to do this successfully, we must first cleanse the body of its myriad mind-fogging toxins taken in through […]

Milton’s Quotidian Paradise, Lost

By Catherine Nicholson Katie Kadue: Domestic Georgic: Labors of Preservation from Rabelais to Milton Timothy M. Harrison: Coming To: Consciousness and Natality in Early Modern England Nicholas McDowell: Poet of Revolution: The Making of John Milton Joe Moshenska: Making Darkness Light: A Life of John Milton NYRB Of the many liberties John Milton took in writing Paradise Lost, his 1667 epic […]

Foucault in Warsaw and the Shapeless, Shaping Gaze of the Surveillance State

Reviewed by Marcel Radosław Garboś Foucault in Warsaw by Remigiusz Ryziński  translated by Sean Gasper Bye Open Letter Books, 220pp., $15.95 Harvard Review Since Poland’s state socialist system collapsed in 1989, the records of its police agencies and security services have gone to a government commission entrusted with the “prosecution of crimes against the Polish […]

Noah Davis, Untitled (2015)

The Haunt of One Yet Faintly Present: Noah Davis, Still at Home

Noah Davis, at the Underground Museum, Los Angeles Reviewed by Ricky Amadour Directly across from the entrance, an opening statement to Noah Davis, at the Underground Museum, reads “many of the paintings you are about to see were painted in this space.” Smudges, dribbles, and droplets on the floor embody the physical notion of Davis […]

Julian Schnabel, The Chimes of Freedom Flashing (detail), 2022

The Supremely Humanistic Hand of Julian Schnabel

For Esmé – With Love and Squalor, at Pace Gallery, Los Angeles (through 21 May 2022) Reviewed by Eve Wood How does one represent, let alone quantify hope, hate, grief, love, joy, tragedy, or anything, for that matter, which stands in opposition to something else? Throughout his illustrious career, Julian Schnabel has always been one to […]

Rose Wylie, "I Like To Be" (2020)

In Full Surrender to the Wylie Eye

Rose Wylie: Which One, at David Zwirner, NYC (through 12 June) Reviewed by David Salle Rose Wylie: Which One by Rose Wylie; with Barry Schwabsky, Judith Bernstein, and Hans Ulrich Obrist David Zwirner Books, 196pp., $75.00 NYRB Rose Wylie, who is now eighty-seven, has been painting in the same rural studio in Kent, England, since […]

The Artful Construction of The ‘I’

by Merve Emre NYR The essay form…bears some responsibility for the fact that bad essays tell stories about people instead of elucidating the matter at hand. —Theodor Adorno The personal essay is a genre that is difficult to define but easy to denounce. The offending element is rarely the essay as a form, but its […]

Copyright © 2025 · News Pro Theme On Genesis Framework · WordPress · Log in