5 hundred phrases — my current restrict — is criminally thrifty with regards to evaluating the work of Allan Wexler. The artist is 74 years previous. There are 27 works in his present present at Jane Lombard Gallery, and it’s his first exhibition in almost 10 years.
An architect by coaching, Wexler creates splendidly intelligent, imaginative, and stylish sculptures that enlarge the absurdities of on a regular basis actions. Within the heart of the white, windowless, subterranean downstairs of the gallery, as an example, sits “Light Table” (2021). Constructed of straightforward planar volumes and painted institutional grey, the sculpture is determinedly grim. Clear glass dishes and bowls, laid out as if for a meal, are partially submerged into the tabletop. Brilliant white lights illuminate the glassware from under. A tangled viscera of black electrical cords droop under the desk, delivering energy to the lights and including a contact of the dystopian. In leaving the cords so casually uncovered, Wexler makes clear that he isn’t performing a magic trick however somewhat presenting an industrial impact, one thing managed via mechanical gadgets and built-in into the world of energy grids and home untidiness. If his work is otherworldly, its strangeness remains to be tethered to this one.
Allan Wexler, “Reframing Nature” (2015), tree department, images, and wooden
The didacticism of Wexler’s titles typically belies the straightforward wit of his sculptures. In “Reframing Nature” (2015), a twisting tree department is represented in a triadic collection: first, as a photograph; then, as a photograph that has been sliced aside and collaged such that the department seems straight; and at last, as a bodily department into which picket wedges have been pushed with the intention to unbend it. In different phrases, the department, grievously wounded, is handled with a type of its personal mutilated materials that not solely fills its lacerations however retains them open. It’s a little bit of craftwork that speaks on to the artist-builder’s coronary heart — to the difficulty of plumbness, to the continuous battle of carpenters towards warps and bows and bends, and to a tradition of manufacturing that forcefully imposes regularity on peculiarity. By the way, the phrase “true” — a part of the two-word title of the present, In all probability True — is woodworking nomenclature for “straight.”
A few of Wexler’s most memorable works are design interventions that refashion social relations. Within the 1990 sculpture “Coffee Seeks its Own Level,” 4 espresso mugs are tethered along with tubing that intersects at a four-way node, such that the motion of lifting one cup sends liquid flowing via the tubes to decrease ones. Coordination, then, is required for every individual to drink. It’s an optimistic work: It means that design would possibly bestow magnificence on our lives, that bodily objects would possibly foster tenderness and commonality.
Simply twenty years later, nonetheless, Wexler’s designs appeared largely meant to counter the sick results of different, way more prevalent designs. In his present present, a number of maquettes for wearable apparatuses appear to deal with the issue of respiratory inside a toxified ambiance. And “Phone Silencer” (2017), an elaborately insulated suitcase, provides a way of isolating from that the majority inescapable of gadgets — one which additionally promised to convey us into better communion. Wexler’s work is usually described as “speculative.” One is reminded that hypothesis is synonymous with danger.
Allan Wexler, “Light Table” (2021), utensils, glass dinnerware, wooden, and lightning fixtures
Allan Wexler, “Set W” (1989), acrylic and pictures on plywood
Allan Wexler, “Cones of Vision” (2016), wooden, paint, and material
Allan Wexler, “Extruded Dinnerware” (2021), utensils, dinnerware, wooden, and museum board
Allan Wexler: In all probability True continues at Jane Lombard Gallery (58 White Avenue, Tribeca, Manhattan) via March 8. The exhibition was organized by the gallery.
