Porous Coverage at Fjord
Volume talks with Sarah Coote about the show she recently curated at Fjord in Philadelphia.
Volume:
Can you tell us a little about FJORD and how you got involved there?
Sarah Coote: I met the members of FJORD after I graduated from RISD in 2013. I knew about the space before I moved to Philadelphia and met everyone that summer. Later on I became a member and briefly had a studio in the original location. I’m still close with everyone since leaving for graduate school at VCU last August and I was thrilled that my proposal for their September show worked out. The new gallery is great.
Volume: When did you begin working on this project?
SC: I organized Porous Coverage’s proposal over the summer. I’ve been wanting to curate a show with all of our works since knowing Wesley, Avery and Anthony at VCU, and I’ve been a fan of Rachel’s sculptures since knowing her while she was a graduate student at RISD in 2012. A huge part of my practice inside and outside of the studio is making space for ideas and exhibitions - a curatorial practice. So, for this show I wanted to carve out a space for the conversations I was having in my own studio and extending it to these other amazing artists who are thinking about similar themes and yet working with different materials and subject matter.
Volume: What are the general parameters of the show?
SC: The concept of skins, body, the absence of a body and the queering of mundane objects and space all coalesce into the show’s main concept - a Porous Coverage. As the description in the press release states: the paintings, sculptures and vides in the exhibition collage various materials collected from personal archives, cultural artifacts and painted parts. The result is a porous coverage, one with fragmentation and flexibility for growth. Their surfaces seduce the viewer into believing their structure is solid and clean, only to witness the spillage of parts once the wholeness is exposed.
Volume: Who are the artists included?
SC: The artists include…
Wesley Chavis www.wesleychavis.com
Myself (Sarah Coote) www.sarahcoote.com
J. Avery Theodore Daisey www.theodoredaisey.com
Anthony Iacono www.anthonyiacono.com
Rachel Klinghoffer www.rachelklinghoffer.com
Volume: Can you talk a little about each person’s work?
SC: Sure…
Wesley Chavis’ floor piece (above), The Oily Wrapping of Us, is made with fabric dye, pigment, red wine, cocoa butter, baby oil and seabreeze on canvas. The shape and palette of this piece clearly references an animal hide as well as a human skin. The skin is perforated with bullet-shaped holes, a maroon liquid dried and bloody. What I love about this piece and Wes’ work is that there is a mystery to his process, and in The Oily Wrapping of Us, a figure is so clearly presence and absent.
J. Avery Theodore Daisey’s two-channel video projection (above), hi, i don’t understand, okay, bye (you don’t own my history) and i don’t either, is colorful and layered and complicated. The two videos are meant to be in a corner and the way they are projected in fjord’s gallery allows one to walk closely between them. I wanted to the audio to fill the gallery so that you are drawn into the enclosure.
Anthony Iacono’s paintings (above) are graphic and lure you in. The subjects are performing tasks observed and fetishized. Each of the four paintings: Tie, Man with Belt, Tea, Pencil inject a mundane scene with drama, sex, and absurdity. They are constructed with hand painted paper that Anthony prepares in his studio and cuts for an inlay of each piece for the scene, so the image is whole but created with many fragmented parts.
Sarah Coote (above) The subjects of my Schoolgirls series are young women dressed as girls in uniform. I sourced the images from mainstream porn sites, and cropped the screenshots from the videos to painted portraits of the characters. They are meant to be seen in a series and the direction of their gaze guides you through the piece.
Rachel Klinghoffer’s sculpture, (above) Ya’ Look Good to Me, ties the room together with its texture and color. It was made from used stretcher bar, lingerie, underwear, jeans, dresses, studio ephemera, jewelry from collector, lace from her husbands great grandmother, quilt made by her mother-in-law, leftover leather from friends, fabric glue and acrylic.
Next to it hangs, Busy Tryin’ to Charm, made from used paint brushes, gold, black diamonds, rubies, sapphires, amethyst, citrine, quartz, pearls, wire, magic sculpt, acrylic and metallic powder. Both sculptures reveal and hide all important elements the artists’ presence and a body’s history through material.
Porous Coverage is on view at Fjord in Philadelphia through October 20th.
To learn more about each artist in the links above and check out Fjord’s upcoming, current, and past shows at www.fjordspace.com