NYAB Event - Mamiko Otsubo "Idea / Equivalent"

Mamiko Otsubo "Idea / Equivalent"

Horton Gallery

This event has ended.

a rose is a rose is a rose is a rosa is a rosaceae is a rosale is a rosid

sievelike lens-shaped
bean-like boat-shaped
whip-like scurfy
brainlike flaky
sickle-shaped hooked

shaped like the beak of a falcon like a cut gem
like the coiled shell of a snail a hood or a lid

or slipper-shapped or scrotum-like
or sawdust-like or wing-like
ladder-like turnip-shaped
helmet-shaped shield-shaped
lance-shaped lyre-shaped
tongue-shaped breast-shaped

with nipple like protuberances mallow-like
resembling the horn of a cow mouse-colored

lead-colored wine colored
many colored with many parts
with many forms many-angled
with many whorls and many spikes
with many flowers each many-styled
and many stamen-ed lime-loving
terminating abruptly as if bitten off

with the margins rolled backward an agreeable taste
fetid and lustrous brilliant and finger-like
adapted for grasping weakly climbing
adventitious seed-bearing
spadix bearing spathe bearing
bearing selenium bearing resin
and often and sticky

Concrete chatter, architectonic splices, and vernacular patterns form the basis for Idea/Equivalent, Mamiko Otsubo’s first solo show in New York. Collectively the works unravel the distance between call and response with lilting ruminations and noiseless drama. Morphological reference is used as a general, all-purpose tool; a convenient marker for where the disconnect between the canonical and the vernacular takes place. Accordingly, characteristic meanings manifest themselves in their particular manner of reappearance and are expressed in use more so than in mention.

[Image: Mamiko Otsubo "Untitled (Glass Horizon with Ball)" (2012) Glass, rubber ball, wood & museum board, 24 x18.5 in.]