Temporary Art Review is a platform for contemporary art criticism that focuses on alternative spaces and critical exchange among disparate art communities. Temporary is a national network, highlighting both practical and theoretical discourse through exhibition reviews, interviews, essays and features on artist-run spaces and projects.
Jessica Stockholder. 2006. Two plastic lids, various taupe colored plastic parts, hardware, wooden brackets, giraffe lamp, palm leaves lamp, wooden coffee table lamp, Styrofoam and paper mache, silicone caulking, acrylic and oil paints, yellow and beige extension cords, plastic yellow ball and yellow dish washing scrubby. 104 x 47 x 63” Courtesy of artist, Mitchell-Innes & Nash, New York and 1301 PE, Los Angeles. Photo by Mike Venso / Laumeier Sculpture Park
The indoor galleries at Laumeier Sculpture Park in St. Louis, Missouri are filled with the intriguing works of Jessica Stockholder including a piece from 2009 (left), 2008 (right). Jessica Stockholder: Grab grassy this moment your I’s runs February 12 – May 29, 2011. Courtesy of artist and Mitchell-Innes & Nash, New York. Photo by Mike Venso / Laumeier Sculpture Park
The indoor galleries at Laumeier Sculpture Park in St. Louis, Missouri are filled with the intriguing works of Jessica Stockholder including a piece from 2008 (left) and 2009 (right). Jessica Stockholder: Grab grassy this moment your I’s runs February 12 – May 29, 2011. Courtesy of artist and Mitchell-Innes & Nash, New York. Photo by Mike Venso / Laumeier Sculpture Park
Jessica Stockholder. 2009. Stone, two metal brackets, plastic board, upholstered plywood, plastic parts, plastic sheeting, silver string, yarn, grommets, oil and acrylic paint, fabric tape. 56 x 26 x 12” Courtesy of artist and Mitchell-Innes & Nash, New York. Photo by Mike Venso / Laumeier Sculpture Park
Jessica Stockholder. Line Walking, 2010. Purple extension cord, Styrofoam packing material, roofing tar, photo frames, bamboo furniture, wooden fragment, plastic pieces, nylon strapping, green extension cord, light fixture, fluorescent yellow bug light, hardware. 29 x 42 x 18” Courtesy of artist and Mitchell-Innes & Nash, New York. Photo by Mike Venso / Laumeier Sculpture Park
As the weather dips and peaks in Saint Louis’ notoriously unpredictable months from February to May, Laumeier Sculpture Park will be host to Jessica Stockholder’s spring-like exhibition, Grab grassy this moment your I’s. Accompanying the indoor exhibition, an outdoor piece titled Flooded Chambers Maid is a sculpture-meets-playground-meets-stage. Originally commissioned for Madison Square Park in New York, the sculpture was uprooted and reconfigured in Laumeier’s Children’s Sculpture Garden in Fall of 2010 and will remain as a long-term loan. Saint Louis might be getting the Frankensteined leftovers of the initial commission, but reappropriation is part of the charm of Stockholder’s celebrated work.
With an approach that has dominated work from the mid to late 2000′s, Stockholder stages multiple mass-produced objects with proportion and balance in scale and color to form a cohesive whole. Before you dismiss Stockholder as yet another artist “arranging stuff with other stuff,” as I carelessly almost did, consider her esteemed career of nearly three decades and counting. What’s shocking is that Stockholder, the mother of this found object assemblage movement, was not included in the New Museum’s 2008 exhibition, Unmonumental–a survey intended to encapsulate this precarious approach to art making.
Laumeier’s intimate indoor galleries feature ten separate works. While these solitary pieces divide the space, their isolation reinforces each individual formal composition. Paint is thoughtfully applied to the objects or their surrounding areas, drawing upon abstraction to negate the narrative of the very familiar objects. Her best sculptures in the exhibition swallow up preconceived notions. As if never having been a shower curtain or lampshade, they are utilized for pure aesthetic value.
Grab grassy this moment your I’s is on view at Laumeier Sculpture Park, in St. Louis, MO through May 29, 2011. Images courtesy of Laumeier Sculpture Park.
