air is air and thing is thing

air is air and thing is thing
Triple Candy, New York

2005

^{View from Nani’s Book Ends (image of Etant Donnes)}

^{Nani’s Book Ends, faux brick panel, insulation foam, plaster, luminescence, mirror, 2x4 studs}

^{Over and Over, Little Gods, Installation view, tar, insulation board, plaster, ipe pallets, sandbags}

^{Crevice, rubber roofing liner, 2x4 studs, marker’s paint, blue rayon}

^{4 am, 2x4 studs, faux wood panel, marker’s paint, mirror}

^{Untitled (flicker), painters plastic, conduit, electricity, flicker bulb}

^{Honesty of Space, cardboard, 2x4 studs, melamine, paper, sandbags}

When seen from a specific vantage point, seven independent sculptures align to create a single image depicting Marcel Duchamp’s Etant Donnes but where the female figure lay in the negative.

Each sculpture abides by it’s own logic and mimics the flux of transitional environments, that of geological landscape and the domestic building trade. When a viewer looks through the peephole positioned in the faux brick surface of one of the sculptures, Nani’s Book Ends, the artworks coalesce to the contours of Etant Donnes but whereas the female figure lay in the negative space. The eye wants to see the flattened space of the image, while the sculptures pull the tableau out into dimensional space.

Meanwhile, meandering viewers may interrupt this image, unwittingly walking through the body of the prone female.

The title of the exhibition is adapted from the e.e. cummings poem, now air is air and thing is thing: no bliss.

Artwork featured in Marcel Duchamp: Étant Donnés
Featured in New York Times