Negative Capabilities
12.7.2019 - 1.18.2020
Curated by Gregory Lind
Gregory Lind has been something of a role model for us. His eye for talent, his ethics, and his sublimation of ego have served as examples from the very start of Bass & Reiner. In lieu of our typical winter Test Kitchen, we asked Gregory to curate a show for us and the outcome appears, not surprisingly, as something we would have put together ourselves. We suppose that’s how influences work.
The show in question, Negative Capabilities, features works by Tisha Benson, Mason Dowling, and Jon-Paul Villegas. All three artists are incorporating materials and forms that are perhaps uncommon in sculptures but overly abundant in our world at large (recycled velcro, foam packing material, dryer lint etc,) serving to not only comment on issues of waste but expand the textural and conceptual possibilities of an object based practice. Benson refers to this process as “habilitating” which could be taken to mean giving something a set of capabilities. Each of the artists has developed their own visual vocabulary to define or at least hypothesize these capabilities.