Moved Still Lives

Several works in the show re-envision the human body as a playful, willful being interacting with surrounding objects. Colin  J. Radcliffe’s sculpture Dick Vase celebrates queer love while cockily transverting the role of a traditional still life object—flowers—with the penis becoming the nurturing support that cradles the blossoms as they grow and eventually wilt. Double Tap by Lauren Carly Shaw, references our relationship to our phones, asking how this period of isolation has affected both our devices and our bodies. Have our phones transformed into more human-like companions as our bodies have atrophied from whole working human forms to anthropomorphic blobs? Shayna Strype and Yael Nachajon's video The Vulva, features a vulva made from everyday materials found at the dollar store. Not only does this piece turn the body into an object of irreverent yet sincere worship, it also gives new life to toys and femme scraps: dinosaur Valentine’s squishy toys, fuzzy socks, ballerina tutus, scrunchies, and koosh balls.

Continuing with the theme of the metamorphosing everyday items, Andy Harman’s Windbreak brings together feather boas, steel rods, rope, tennis balls, a can, and wood in an amalgamation sculpture that removes each individual object from their original contexts resulting in glimpses into new potentialities for the items in our daily surroundings. Looking deeper into the hidden potential of overlooked items, painter Tsai-Ling’s aptly titled Everyday Routine, sheds a vivid light on the banal daily ritual of begrudgingly yet lovingly cleaning up after our pets, while Dane Manary’s photo of fungus blooming out of a smiley bodega bag explores the inherent life and evolution of our trash. 

Many works within the show transform traditional still life subjects, such as fruit, to endow animism and agency. Stephen Morrison's sculptures Banana and Apple Core,  peer out at the viewer, looking simultaneously dignified and amused at their condition as art objects. Max Heighes’ Dumbbell Set sculpture depicts a full dumbbell set consisting of fruit as the weighted objects with cherries at the lowest weight of five pounds and a cluster of grapes topping out at a whopping 27 lbs. The work cheekily mocks the solemnity of masculinity through re-envisioning standard gym equipment into floating fruits, adding whimsy to all that weight. Talia Levitt’s painting Vanitas Torso 2 is simultaneously a self-portrait and a still life using objects such as a pocket and a belt to create a human torso shape. The empty banana peel and whittled apple core beneath the waist line allude to an aging reproductive system and eventual decay of the artist - the cycle of life that encompasses all of us living beings. 

All the works in Moved Still Lives ask us as viewers to consider how we conceive of the commodities in our lives, the various intimacies and intricacies of our relationships to them, and how we have perhaps misjudged or underestimated them. Now, as we begin to venture back into the world, they ask us not to forget them.

Install shots by Morgan Waltz — Off Photography