Veins of Gypsum Mortar ran at Ashley Berlin between July 17 to August 1 2015. Artists Viktor Briestensky and Adam Shiu-Yang Shaw invited several other artists to show with them in a dimly lit room full of shadows in the space formally known as Other Projects. The title presents an altering thought that the part (mortar) that holds and seals things (gypsum) together is maybe the things themselves: too, or instead of. Gypsum is a material found present in chalk, alabaster and other forms of plaster. Many of the works in the small internal room seem as though they have swallowed chalk.
Leslie Kulesh‘s piece, ‘T.A.H. Temporary Autonomous Home (Survival Pillow Set)’ (2015) is made and therefore protected with PET film, a transparent polyester film which blocks the following waves: thermal, micro, and electro magnetic -as the materials list on Ashley Berlin’s website describes. There are two pillows. They are very close to each other, held together by a strap that makes them sit back to back. The foam pieces on their insides are visible – each granule.
On to one of the stone walls in the room Berlin-based artist Marco Bruzzone sticks soft, barbecue-sized marshmallows into the shape of a ‘T’ or a cork-screw or a drill and its called ‘get out fast’ (2015). Andrea Lukic shows three short recent videos -including the haunting ‘Christine Nicole’ (2014) -all wrapped up in in a square monitor, which is all wrapped up in transparent plastic and is also a place for Parisian artist Antoine Renard‘s piece of ground beef (‘untitled’, 2015) to sit.
Artist and co-founder of New York’s Tomorrow Gallery, Aleksander Hardashnakov shows several small drawings pasted to the walls and interior piping, Adam Shiu-Yang Shaw’s ‘Yucca Rose’ and ‘Beyond Quartzite’ are also on the walls, coming out like small cliffs on a bigger cliff face. Viktor Briestensky presents some masks, which also come out from the wall – or the weird melting shadow shape carved into the wall directly behind them. For ‘untitled (hood)’/ ‘untitled (mask)’ 2015 Briestensky swaps facial features for metal grates and eyes for silver foil goggles.
With no press release to speak of Veins of Gypsum Mortar is instead made up of casts, hollow things, lamps, lighting and things used as padding or stuffing -marshmallows included, maybe. **
Exhibition photos, top right.
