9 JULY 2011 – 16 JULY 2011
OPENING RECEPTION: 9 JULY, 7 – 11 PM
“When a reporter asks why I build only for the rich, I note that the rich aren’t the only ones who benefit
from my buildings. I explain that I put thousands of people to work who might otherwise be collecting
unemployment, and that I add to the city’s tax base every time I build a new project.”
– Donald Trump, The Art of The Deal
In 19th century France the town of Lyon prospered from silk. The entire region was financed by this textile industry, a practice organized in three parts: the fabricants provided the raw material and pattern requests; the chefs d’atelier processed these requests as the owners of the looms, and employed the compagnons as their workers.
At The Long Table uses this traditional economic model to re-examine the role of production. Each artist in the exhibition questions the relevancy of material and surface potency as a defining characteristic of value. Appearance and modes of utility that we take for granted are repositioned to consider new meanings of order.
Steven Brekelmans’ gold bars invert their material worth through their construction. Instead of a bar being produced by casting melted gold in an ingot, it has been painstakingly carved out of wood by hand. Natalie Häusler continues her interest in juxtaposing and contrasting different materials. In her piece, a strand of silk produced by the larvae of an insect undergoing metamorphosis is held aloft by a stainless steel insect pin, a man-made instrument manufactured on the same scale as the organically mass-produced natural fiber. Annie MacDonell expands on the idea of repetition and production. Her photographic print imposes a test print of luxurious domestic interior with a mirror as its centerpiece infinitely reflecting its environment of manufactured elements against a wall covered in hand-written measurements.
At The Long Table challenges the hierarchy of production, de-contextualizing it through the juxtaposition of materials. The repetition of forms and the effects of construction ultimately result in discrepancies of traditionally enforced value.