Friday, March 18, 2011

‘Social Structures’ show at Center

Exhibition examines architecture and furniture in society


By SABINA DANA PLASSE
Express Staff Writer

“Black Farnsworth House,” 2010, by Eamon O’Kane. Courtesy the artist and Gregory Lind Gallery, San Francisco, at the Sun Valley Center for the Arts.

The Sun Valley Center for the Arts in Ketchum will unveil its latest exhibition, "Social Structures" today, March 18. The show will feature five artists: Francis Cape, Clay Ketter, Eamon O'Kane, Stephanie Syjuco and Amy Jo Popa. Each artist examines the place where architecture and furniture converge with our values, successes and failures as a society.

"We all know that architecture reflects the society that creates it, but can architecture and design actually cause social change?" asked Courtney Gilbert, The Center's curator of visual arts. "What does it mean when we let architecture that we have long celebrated decay, or when structures that are supposed to be temporary become permanent? How can we take materials that are old or used and make something new of them, and what kind of meanings do these repurposed materials bring to their new structures?"

"Social Structures" presents a range of work—photography, painting, drawing and sculpture—that explores these questions and more. Cape has created a body of work around the Utility Furniture Scheme, a British government-run program from 1942 to 1951 that promoted functional, modernist furniture.

Using original designs, Cape has hand-built pieces of "Utility Furniture" displayed alongside photographs of New Orleans following Hurricane Katrina. Cape also pairs his furniture with photographs of trailers, both the FEMA trailers that filled New Orleans after Katrina and decrepit trailers in upstate New York that are often nearly swallowed up by vegetation and forest.

The exhibition also includes one of a series of shoeshine stands that Gates has made from different kinds of found wood and upholstery. Gates honors the labor that goes into shining shoes while hinting at the power relations built into the throne-like architecture of shoeshine stands. In his stands, something old, damaged or worn is made new again—just as old shoes are renewed by shining.

Ketter has long been interested in architecture, construction, destruction and the use of materials. "Gulf Coast Slabs," a series of photo-based objects, documents the post-Katrina devastation along the Mississippi coast. With an appearance that recalls fresco painting as well as geometric abstraction, these works show both ruin and a slate wiped clean. Also on view are Ketter's "Trace Paintings," which explore the physical construction of walls using actual building materials in quiet works that invoke minimalism.

O'Kane creates paintings and drawings that explore the work of iconic mid-20th-century architects and designers like Le Corbusier, Mies van der Rohe, Philip Johnson and Eileen Gray. Often depicting houses engulfed in lush landscapes, his work considers the relationship between architecture and nature. The rigid geometry of the International-style houses in his work seems oddly incongruous with, and susceptible to, the natural world around them.

Two sculptures based on French designer Charlotte Perriand's modernist furniture are Syjuco's contribution to the "Social Structures." Perriand sought to produce functional spaces and furniture in the hope that better design would help create a better society. Using cardboard, paper, glue and tape, Syjuco has reproduced shelving units that Perriand created in the 1950s. She gives Perriand's clean lines, geometric forms and sleek surfaces an intentionally handmade appearance that juxtaposes modernism's utopian idealism with the social and political realities of the mid-20th century.

"Social Structures" continues through Friday, May 20. Gallery hours are Monday through Friday from 9 a.m. to 5 p.m. and Saturdays in March from 11 a.m. to 5 p.m. Admission to the galleries is always free.

People can enjoy a glass of wine and tour "Social Structures" with Sun Valley Center for the Arts' curators and gallery guides on Thursday, March 31, at 5:30 p.m. at The Center in Ketchum. Other free exhibition tours will take place Thursday, April 14, at 5:30 p.m. and Tuesday, April 26, at 2 p.m. To schedule a tour at another time or in Spanish, call 726-9491.

A related exhibition opening at The Center in Hailey on Friday, April 1, will feature found-material sculptures by Pocatello-based artist Popa and cardboard box furniture by Bob Dix of Hailey. The exhibition will also include work made by participants in Dix's Box Furniture class, which will take place March 29--31. For details, call 726-9491 or visit www.sunvalleycenter.org.

Sabina Dana Plasse: splasse@mtexpress.com




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