NYAB Event - Polly Apfelbaum "Off Colour"

Polly Apfelbaum "Off Colour"

D'Amelio Gallery

This event has ended.

In this new body of work, Apfelbaum cuts and arranges sequined stretch fabric on-site to create a floor-based installation that responds specifically to the gallery’s space and architecture. A departure from previous bodies of work, where Apfelbaum cuts and dyes fabric in her studio to be laid out in predetermined arrangements, this temporal installation is “situational,” being born of and only able to exist within the physical space of its original conceptualization. The artist improvises, in real time with the scraps and leftovers of the cutting process. Here, Apfelbaum’s practice teeters on the edge of performance, as she focuses on “the event of making” while deemphasizing the permanence of emerging artwork.

Amplified colors and abstract forms enable painting and sculpture to merge in an open environment. Apfelbaum cuts her material, creating lines in space that circumscribe the viewer’s path through reflective configurations of glittery pink, green, red and gold. The simplicity of her hard-edged forms illuminates the visual significance of the negative space that separates them. What the artist calls “automatic abstraction” emerges from the interplay between presence, void and color. As in much of her past work, the show’s palette is a found system of color, this time being loosely based on a group of slides Apfelbaum found at Spitalfields Market in London. The sequined fabric both relates to Apfelbaum’s interest in pop culture and ordinary, cheap material, while it also distills formal qualities as the individual disk-shaped beads reflect and refract light, creating endless visual possibilities for the viewer.