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Studies in Decay negotiates a new approach to realism

02.12.11

Is just that: an old Lee-brand denim jacket that has been soaked in salt water and then apparently hung on a nail to dry, so that streaks and patches of salt crystals adhere to its stiffened form. Suspended by itself in the middle of a big white wall, this altered found object communicates isolation and forlornness, if not exactly decay. While the jacket’s logo-bearing metal buttons have rusted, suggesting aging and deterioration (of a brand, of a trend, of a youth-culture marker), the larger evidence of the salt crystals on the fabric is of accretion, another condition altogether.

Piasta’s sculpture calls up some pretty powerful precedents: Liz Magor’s clothing and accessory sculptures from her series “Stores”, and Elvira Finnigan’s “Saltwatch Experiments”. Magor’s KD—the Original, a realistic-looking backpack cast in silicone rubber and leaking Day-Glo orange “cheese” powder from a package of Kraft Dinner, and Pearlwhite, a pearlescent raincoat paired with a large purse, again cast in silicone rubber, were both exhibited at the Contemporary Art Gallery in 2000. (Coincidentally, the CAG at that time occupied the same premises that the Or Gallery now rents.) Finnigan, based in Winnipeg, has used many media to track the transformation of objects immersed in salt brine and to create metaphors about the passage of time and the stages of life. Although Piasta is an interesting artist, her salty jacket looks unresolved in comparison.

Source: Straight.com