Threaded: Polly Apfelbaum Brochure

THREADED

A suite of three one-person exhibitions focusing on artists who work with thread and fabric as their medium

POLLY APFELBAUM: City of Lights Miles C. Horton Jr. Gallery February 12–April 12, 2015

TA K I N G I T T O “What’s the matter with being smart and pretty at the same time?”1 –Polly Apfelbaum This question, with all its historical implications, childlike frankness, and flirtatious defiance is perhaps the most adequate summation of the work of Polly Apfelbaum, an energetic and versatile artist whose career spans over 35 years. Perhaps most notable about Apfelbaum’s work is its refusal to fit neatly in any category; it is difficult to define and even harder to fully interpret. And that’s just how Apfelbaum likes it.

Though it may, at times, appear deceptively simple, Polly Apfelbaum’s work churns with contradiction. A thin veil of sumptuous beauty softens, but does not obscure, a shifting web of tension and intellectual banter. Spirited color unfolds to invite meaning, inquiry, and play. The very medium itself is often contradictory. Although proficient in many mediums, Apfelbaum is best known for her floor pieces, called “fallen paintings,” lush and sometimes expansive mosaics of painstakingly cut fabric pieces assembled on site in the gallery. Is such work sculpture or painting? Commercial or domestic? High art or dirty laundry?2 The cutting of the fabric and arrangement of space mimics the work of a sculptor, while the application of swaths of color evokes a painter’s stroke. Apfelbaum’s use of fabric, a material with domestic associations, suggests softness and comfort, but her often saturated, punky palette and use of machine-made fabrics smacks of pop culture commercialism. Her use of the floor—everyday, humble, even dirty—as both background and surface undermines associations of art with the precious and the priceless. Slinky, sparkling fabric pools and puddles on the floor like a cheap cocktail dress; luscious color resonates in the changing light like a rare jewel. It is, simultaneously, a little bit old-Hollywood royalty, a little bit walk-of-shame.

Funkytown, 2009 Hand cut and dyed fabric Dimensions variable Installation View: Painting, and Its Surroundings: Palacio de Sastago, Zaragoza, Spain Image courtesy of Clifton Benevento, New York

Front cover: Detail of sequined fabric from City of Lights. Photo courtesy of the artist.

O THE FLOOR

Often cited and debated is the role of feminism in Apfelbaum’s Dimensions variable work, and vice versa. As a woman Installation view: Off Colour, artist, the connection is inevitable, D’Amelio Terras, New York a t l ea s t from the out s i d e .

Image courtesy of Clifton Apfelbaum’s reinterpretation of Benevento, New York the traditionally masculine order of minimalism via the use of traditionally “feminine” materials suggests a questioning of women’s place in both the historical canon of art and the contemporary art world. Her sculptural use of material and space is assertive; Apfelbaum slices and shapes the fabric and, in choosing her installation layout, she decides where and how you move through her crafted environment. Such physical dominance and manipulation implies the masculine, while color and texture affirm femininity. Ever-present in Apfelbaum’s work is beauty, and its presence revives yet again the question of whether feminism and beauty are mutually exclusive, if something beautiful can be meaningful, powerful, smart. Apfelbaum certainly seems Off Colour, 2010

Synthetic sequined fabric

to think so, but chooses not to speak for the art. Although her work invokes these contradictions and subversions, Apfelbaum dismisses such singular readings of her work, as “feminist,” “minimalist,” or otherwise. There is so much more to be said, so much room for play.

On view here is City of Lights, 2015, a new floor work created for the Center for the Arts at Virginia Tech. Composed of 16 colors of synthetic sequin fabric and more than 40 colors of spray paint, City of Lights hearkens to earlier works, such as Off Colour (2010), Stax (2009), and Not in Any Way, Shape, or Form (2009), however this installation looks firmly forward. This work was envisioned and placed based on Apfelbaum’s interpretation of the Miles C. Horton Jr. Gallery space, with its expansive windows, interposing columns, and rectangular floor plan. As the light changes from dawn to evening, natural to halogen, the work itself changes in hue, texture, and mood, reminiscent of James Turrell and works from the Light and Space group. As the viewer carefully navigates the paths around and amid the

Stax, 2009 Sequined fabric, dimensions variable Installation view, Carlow Visual Arts Center of Contemporary Art, Carlow, Ireland

pieces of fabric, the light and sense of being in the space—of presence—also changes.

City of Lights is half speaker, half listener; it requires your input, your experience, and your movement to finish its story. Unfolding before you in the gallery, under and between the rich fields of color, catching and dodging the changing light, are all these contradictions, these questions, this refusal to be limited by definition. What is this?

What does it mean?

Apfelbaum’s answer? All of the above, and more.

Meggin Hicklin Coordinating Curator

About the Artist Polly Apfelbaum received a BFA from the Tyler School of Art in 1978 and also attended SUNY Purchase College in New York. She lives and works in New York City.

Recent solo exhibitions include Color Sessions, Frith Street Gallery, London, England, (2014); Nevermind: Work from the ’90s, Worcester Art Museum, Worcester, Massachusetts (2014–2015); A Handweaver’s Pattern Book, Clifton Benevento, New York, New York (2014); Evergreen Blue Shoes, Burlington City Arts, Burlington, Vermont (2014); Color Stations, lumber room, Portland, Oregon (2014); and Second That Emotion, Mumbai Art Room, Mumbai, India (2014).

Apfelbaum’s work is also featured in numerous public collections, including the Museum of Modern Art, New York, New York; Philadelphia Museum of Art, Philadelphia, Pennsylvania; Whitney Museum of American Art, New York, New York; and Musee d’Art Moderne de la Ville de Paris, France.

City Lights, 2015 (detail) Synthetic sequined fabric Dimensions variable I mage courtesy of Clifton Benevento Gallery, New York

To learn more about Polly Apfelbaum, visit www.cliftonbenevento.com.

End Notes 1

David Pagel, “Color Them Retro,” Los Angeles Times, 16 August 1998, 6.

2

pfelbaum has compared her work to laundry, or clothes strewn about the floor, to explain the significance of her use of the floor as both A surface and background.

Detail of sequined fabric used in City of Lights, 2015. Synthetic fabric with sequins. Photo courtesy of the artist.

THREADED A suite of three concurrent exhibitions The Polly Apfelbaum exhibition is part of a suite of three one-person exhibitions presented by the Center for the Arts at Virginia Tech focusing on artists who work with threaded material as their medium.

Stay connected The following events are free.

Artist Talk: Polly Apfelbaum

Coming

February 12, 2015, 7 PM Miles C. Horton Jr. Gallery

ICAT: Open at the Source April 23–May 17, 2015 Miles C. Horton Jr. Gallery

My Take Talks This series invites people from all walks of life to share their “take” on the art in the center’s galleries. Join in an exchange of ideas—sparked by the galleries’ art—in a relaxed, social atmosphere.

Check www.artscenter.vt.edu for more details.

SOVA: Senior Studio Show April 23–May 17, 2015 Ruth C. Horton Gallery

Gallery Hours

Tuesday–Friday, 10 AM–6 PM Saturday and Sunday, 10 AM–4 PM

Concurrent Exhibitions Threaded: Shinique Smith February 12–April 12, 2015 Ruth C. Horton Gallery

Polly Apfelbaum: City of Lights Threaded: Angelo Filomeno Miles C. Horton Jr. Gallery February 12–April 12, 2015 Moss Arts Center Sherwood Payne Quillen ‘71 Reception Gallery February 12–April 12, 2015 Presented by the Center for the Arts at Virginia Tech Also on View Coordinating Curator, Meggin Hicklin Lalla Essaydi Presented in conjunction with the Islamic Worlds Festival February 12–April 12, 2015 Francis T. Eck Exhibition Corridor Odili Donald Odita: Bridge Grand Lobby

For more information about this and future exhibitions, visit www.artscenter.vt.edu.

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