Erika Vogt
Weed Beach
27.05.2017 –– 08.07.2017
MARY MARY
Suite 2 / 1 6 Dixon Street
Glasgow G1 4AX Scotland UK
Mary Mary is delighted to announce our rst solo exhibition with Los Angeles based, Erika Vogt. Vogt is a sculptor who works materially across mediums. Vogt’s sculptures have taken the form of large-scale installations, collaborative theatrical projects and heavily textured, performative videos. In her practice, objects are a catalyst for movement of the human gure.
As in past exhibitions and works, Vogt mines iconography ranging from architecture to the decorative arts through numerous historical periods. In ‘Weed Beach’, Vogt focuses on the form of the disc and of the sphere as manifested in a range of cultural production and civilization, building from archaic architectural models, to armor and weaponry, to models of the planetary solar system and geological phenomena such as volcanos. These varying sculptural forms, hang and lean, and are installed so as to draw attention to and utilize the differing architecture of the space. In this sense, the works act both as props and functional objects, as they casually sit and hang in the space.
The sculptures in ‘Weed Beach’ are never one thing. They are a re-working of performative forms and are at once sculptural pieces and post-performance re- enactments with each given the name of a friend, a family member or fellow artist, some of whom participated in the theatre works. Many of the works in the exhibition simultaneously function as sculpture, costume, prop and practical object; some even forming functioning vases or work tables further emphasizing their role as a plane for activity. This dual sculptural function – of both practical prop and sculptural object is a recurring motif within Vogt’s practice. Previously Vogt has re-worked the props used in the collaborative performances for the ‘Artist Theater Program’ and those used for her videos and installations. The works materiality reference a quick, rough production with their colours taken from a series of protest posters and pro-democracy campaigns.
Each work here is linked to a script written by Vogt called ‘Noon at Weed Beach’.The two rooms of the gallery space allow for distinctive mise en scene. In the rst room, with the volcano, objects are environmental or elemental – volcano, planets & owers, and weaponary. In the second room works are ostensibly linked to humankind – Corinthian helmets replicating those common in the archaic period; de ectors modeled after a kardiophylax (disc shaped) worn as armour to protect the heart.
Erika Vogt was born in 1973 in New Jersey and lives and works in Los Angeles. She received an MFA in 2003 from California Institute of the Arts, Los Angeles and a BFA from New York University in 1996. Recent solo exhibitions include ‘Eros Island: Knives Please Rise,’ Overduin & Co, Los Angeles (2016); ‘Slug,’ Simone Subal Gallery, New York (2015); ‘Speech Mesh – Drawn Off,’ The Hepworth Wake eld, Yorkshire & Triangle France, Marseilles (both 2014); ‘Stranger Debris Roll Roll Roll,’ The New Museum, New York (2013). Recent theatrical commissions include Performa NY 2015 andThe Experimental Media and Performing Arts Center at at Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute,Troy, NY.
Recent group exhibitions include ‘Curve of a hill like the curve of a green shoulder,’ Mary Mary, Glasgow (2017); “Répétition”, Curated by Nicola Lees and Asad Raza, Boghossian Foundation Villa Empain, Brussels, Belgium (2016), ‘Reconstructions: Recent Photographs andVideo from the Met Collection,’The Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York (2015); ‘Warm Side of Zero,’ Overduin & Co, Los Angeles; ‘End Things,’ Portland Institute of Art, Portland; ‘Made in LA,’ Hammer Museum, Los Angeles (both 2012).
Vogt is currently included in ‘The Artists Museum’, ICA Boston, Boston and ‘Inventory of Shimmers,’ MIT Visual Arts Centre, Boston. Mary Mary will be showing new work byVogt alongside Milano Chow at LISTE, Basel in June.
* All images courtesy the Artist; Mary Mary, Glasgow
Photographer credit: Max Slaven