Material World: Group Exhibition curated by Gina Beavers

509 West 24th Street, New York, NY 10011

For inquiries, please contact Director Beryl Bevilacque:

beryl@boeskygallery.com

Marianne Boesky Gallery is pleased to present Material World, a group exhibition curated by gallery artist Gina Beavers. With Material World, Beavers brings together 22 artists who examine the power in everyday objects—artists who have served as points of inspiration and reflection for Beavers as she works toward her next solo exhibition at Marianne Boesky Gallery, opening in September 2024. 

If the traditional source material for art is found in the figure, in history, in religion, or in the landscape, the artists of Material World look elsewhere—to the very things that populate their daily lives. Taking as their starting point the things we might find in our homes or offices, the things we wear on our bodies, the things we absentmindedly toss in the trash, these artists translate the paraphernalia of quotidian living into grand abstractions, intricate assemblages, and riffs on the tropes of art history. 

Throughout their work, Sarah Meyohas, Jared Madere, Andrew Roberts, Josh Kline, and Robert Rauschenberg filter the experience of physical objecthood through a lens of replication or reproduction—be it photography, artificial intelligence, digital algorithms, or sculptural recreation. Sarah Meyohas (b. 1991; New York, NY) and Jared Madere (b. 1986; New York, NY) experiment with various technological and artificial-intelligence processes in their work—Meyohas by an algorithmically defined pastel plotter machine as an extension of the artist’s own hand, Madere by creating large-scale digital photo mash-up. The body asserts itself as an object in the sculptures of Andrew Roberts (b. 1995; Tijuana, Mexico) while a brick-and-resin wall installation by Josh Kline (b. 1979, Philadelphia, PA) and a historic print by Robert Rauschenberg (b. 1925, d. 2008) invoke critiques of capitalism, calling attention to the sheer onslaught of imagery we experience in a digital age.  

The works of Jack Whitten, Jonathan Sánchez Noa, LaKela Brown, and Allison Janae Hamilton occupy the liminal space between the art and objecthood—and mine the distance between past and present, between the abstract and the real. With cubes of acrylic paint and an old pair of sunglasses, Jack Whitten (b. 1939, d. 2018) composes a nearly portrait-like image, toying with both perception and assumption. Jonathan Sánchez Noa (b. 1994; Havana, Cuba) and Allison Janae Hamilton (b. 1984; Lexington KY) draw on cultural histories to create new objects imbued with mythic character: Sánchez Noa weaves tobacco fibers into handmade paper compositions that hang like tapestries from the wall while Hamilton adorns the surface of an antique fencing mask with flowers carved in reclaimed wood. With a plaster cast—presented alongside its mold—LaKela Brown (b. 1982; Detroit, MI) makes reference to both early human art forms and 90s hip-hop culture, reflecting on modes of historicization and the distance between past and present.

Ghada Amer, Rosemarie Trockel, Leslie Wayne, El Anatsui, and Sanford Biggers all engage with textile-based crafts throughout their work, infusing seemingly simple objects and forms with loaded histories and alternative possibilities. Reimagining an ancient textile tradition associated with male tentmakers in her native Egypt, Ghada Amer (b. 1963; Cairo, Egypt) appliqués a text by Tunisian women’s rights activist Amina Sboui onto canvas, mimicking the ubiquitous form of a QR code. Rosemarie Trockel (b. 1952; Schwerte, Germany) similarly pulls at the threads of gender in her machine-knit tapestries, recreating a work of renowned male artists in a feminine-coded medium. In contrast, Leslie Wayne (b. 1953; Landstuhl, Germany) hangs a traditional oil-on-canvas painting from a hook on the wall, at once making reference to domestic textiles and the tools of an artist’s studio. Weaving aluminum liquor bottle caps and newspaper printing plates with copper wire, El Anatsui (b. 1944; Anyako, Ghana) repurposes refuse—and its loaded associations—into a sculptural tapestry that defies categorization. Collaging and molding found 19th century quilts—versions of which, according to African American folklore, acted as coded signposts on the Underground Railroad—Sanford Biggers (b. 1970; Los Angeles, CA) positions viewers to confront the obscured histories embedded within his historic materials. 

Darren Bader, Mike Kelley, Jessica Stockholder, and Samara Golden deploy found objects throughout their work, closely examining the very things that occupy our everyday lives. Building a site-specific installation out of celebrity refuse—Jane Fonda’s doily, Shirley MacLaine’s shoes, Mick Fleetwood’s Swiss Army knife—Darren Bader (b. 1978, Bridgeport, CT) juxtaposes the value of a celebrity name with the sheer ordinariness of their one-time possessions. Mike Kelley (b. 1954, d. 2012) arranges a selection of kitschy objects—representative of an American adolescence—just so on a simple wood shelf. Jessica Stockholder (b. 1959; Seattle, WA) builds a colorful, sunset landscape—as reflected in the rearview mirror of a trailer truck—out of small, household objects. Using inexpensive, readily available materials and objects, Samara Golden (b. 1973; Ann Arbor, MI) builds a kitchen table—complete with a full breakfast spread—on the wall, toying with viewers’ perception of time and space.

Elizabeth Murray, Samara Golden, Heidi Bucher, Claes Oldenburg, and  Woody De Othello deploy more traditional artmaking processes to evoke nostalgia and interrogate the familiarity of domestic spaces. Elizabeth Murray (b. 1940, d. 2007) reinterprets the forms of teacups in her signature improvisational style. With latex and textiles, Heidi Bucher (b. 1926, d. 1993) creates a skin of an exterior door, interrogating notions of privacy and loneliness. With a combination of plaster, glass, ceramic, aluminum, paper, and plastic, Claes Oldenburg (b. 1929, d. 2022) presents an unassuming ice cream sundae. Woody De Othello (b. 1991, Miami, Florida) renders household objects in intricately formed ceramic, allowing them to slump and melt as if under the weight of their own gravity. 

The artists of Material World deploy their quotidian objects of choice to various ends—to invoke a certain nostalgia or comforting familiarity, to examine a culture of overconsumption or anxiety about the climate, to investigate elements of personal or political identities, or simply because they need to use objects at their disposal. Nevertheless, these artists—who span generations, geographies, movements and mediums—are firmly planted in the tangibility of their material world, using the objects that surround them as a starting point to think about history, memory, and identity. 

ABOUT GINA BEAVERS

Mining the ubiquitous imagery of Instagram, TikTok, and YouTube, Gina Beavers (b. 1974; Athens, Greece) pushes paint to the height of its sculptural potential—breaking the fourth wall of the internet and pushing her forms through the screen and out into the physical world. Color Story—forthcoming at Marianne Boesky Gallery—will feature a new suite of paintings by Beavers. The artist’s work was the subject of a solo exhibition—titled The Life I Deserve—at MoMA PS1 in 2019. Beavers's work has also been included in group presentations at Lehman Art Gallery, the Barns Art Center, Kentucky Museum of Contemporary Art, Louisville; Nassau County Museum of Art, New York; Flag Art Foundation, New York; William Benton Museum of Art, Connecticut; and Abrons Art Center, New York. Exhibitions of her work have been reviewed in the New York Times, the New Yorker, Frieze, Artforum, Art in America among others. Her work is included in the permanent collections of the Whitney Museum, the ICA Miami and the Tel Aviv Museum of Art. Beavers earned an MFA in Painting and Drawing from the School of the Art Institute of Chicago, an MS in Education from Brooklyn College, and a BA in Studio Art and Anthropology from the University of Virginia. She served as an Adjunct Professor at Columbia University from 2019–2020. Beavers lives and works in Orange, New Jersey.