Lost and Found at PLUG Projects

Artists showing in Lost and Found—Sarah Bostwick, Nuala Clarke, Emily Connell, Ethan Greenbaum, Elana Herzog, Alex Lukas and Daniel Shea—consider remnants from the landscape to examine architecture and industry, the pervasiveness of environmental debris, and broader ruin narratives. From these central ideas, deteriorating materials and imagery are studied, then re-conceived: mixed with new materials, frozen in resin, captured in photographs, recreated as vibrant landscapes and architectures, or etched into bronze or ceramic.

The works in this show side-step nostalgia, focusing foremost on documentation, invention, and construction. Alex Lukas’ handheld booklets, RTMA, DMM, VIID, grant an intimate view of brightly colored crumbling landscapes, while Emily Connell’s Phases of the Holy Bible nearly obliterate any recognizability of the book itself, as it is reorganized, sliced, and suspended in resin as four aerial-like views reminiscent of land.

Ethan Greenbaum’s Plus Sided, a sculptural wall piece made of cast paper, aluminum flakes, and shredded tire rubber is hung high on the wall like a glimmering scaly architectural ornament belonging to the exhibition space. Made of various sections of muted natural wood and fabric fastened together with staples, Elana Herzog’s elegant pillar-like sculpture grows from the floor and springs up into the ceiling. The result is something quiet and measured, a quality echoed throughout the show, very gently building anew from the lost and forgotten.

Lost and Found was on view at PLUG Projects in Kansas City, MO November 15, 2013 – January 4, 2014.

Images courtesy of PLUG Projects.