Kerry Kugelman on Susan Feldman: Structures & Strings, Curated by Betty Brown
Kerry Kugelman on Susan Feldman: Structures & Strings, Curated by Betty Brown
You must come to this exhibition! This robust solo show finds Susan Feldman conjuring a delightful forest of bristling wooden towers, string mapping, and willful suspensions of assemblages and disbelief. Her constructions of wood slats, scraps, and oddments are archipelagos of exoskeletal territories amid the surround of the entire installation. At first glance the sculptures seem to careen with wild instability, yet longer study reveals an inherent cohesion despite their teeming components.
Though there is a structural density to much of the framework, a lightness pervades the work, like Piranesi filtered through Dr. Seuss, a madcap complexity that can induce that strange giddy feeling sometimes known as a sense of wonder – a rare and precious moment to experience.
A sort of connective tissue of strings and shadows ties the exhibition together, causing our gaze to meander up and around the room. Nails and thread combine in what might be thought of as circuit boards of the imagination, intriguing matrices that defy any attempt to impose understanding, and allow only whimsy to be processed. The interplay of solids, light, and shadow gives the air itself an almost tangible sense of volume, and we are pulled through the exhibition by the visual currents surrounding us.
Kerry Kugelman, May 2015
Kerry Kugelman is a Los Angeles based painter and writer. www.kerrykugelman.com/