Mealy Mouthed Materials, Charismatic Shapes & Other Funny Stories
August 27 - September 21, 1999
Curated by Sally Gil and Dan Mills, Director of the Roland Gibson Art Gallery, State University of New York, Potsdam.
Mealy Mouthed Materials, Charismatic Shapes & other Funny Stories features sculptures by seven New York artists: Lucky DeBellevue, Paul Dickerson, Barbara Galluci, Sally Gil, Elana Herzog, Kenneth Johnston, and Daniel Wiener. Co-curator Dan Mills writes, “As a group, the artists are broadly united by employing historically ‘non-traditional’ sculptural materials such as carpet, shrink wrap, chenille stems and Easter fuzz. The work and its manufacture is often charged with wide-ranging associations. It is often idiosyncratic, but also informed by recent art movements such as Minimalism and Process Art.” Integrating used consumer materials with a perverse whimsy, much of this sculpture feels matter-of-fact and spontaneous while retaining a heartfelt honesty.