eddy at M 2 3 – Art Viewer

Artists: Clare Koury, Daniel Klaas Beckwith, Quay Quinn Wolf, Tenant of Culture, Vladislav Markov

Exhibition title: eddy

Venue: M 2 3, New York, US

Date: December 10, 2020 – February 7, 2021

Photography: all images copyright and courtesy of the artists and M 2 3, New York

M 2 3 is pleased to present eddy – an exhibition of recent work by Clare Koury, Daniel Klaas Beckwith, Quay Quinn Wolf, Tenant of Culture, Vladislav Markov. A sidewalk reception will be held on Thursday, 10 December 2020 from 3 to 8 pm. Please note: In compliance with public safety regulations, capacity will be limited inside the exhibition, face coverings and social distance protocols are required for entry. eddy will be on view 10 December 2020 through 24 January 2021.

You ought to lie in rivers or in ponds
As do the waterweeds which harbour pike.
The body grows light in the water. When your arm
Falls easily from water into sky
The little wind rocks it absentmindedly

[From “Of Swimming in Lakes and Rivers,” by Bertolt Brecht]

An eddy is a spiral, a small vortex, which spins counter to and disrupts the current. Against the great tides of the ocean, or the modest flow of a stream, eddies catch and confuse, addle and amaze. To Bertolt Brecht floating inverts our relationship to the real: we transcend gravity, we “fall into the sky.” Here we see works which similarly push against the currents of our material world, and in doing so call on us to suspend disbelief: in repurposing and recontextualizing media and materials from industrial, domestic, and nonhuman spaces the five artists represented here articulate the fragmented, yet poetic, nature of the present moment.

To those caught in the slipstream of material culture, these works are eddies in the face of capitalism’s incessant flows. Clare Koury’s works repurpose inconspicuous industrial fixtures, forcing a renegotiation of the body’s relationship to the hardware which characterizes banal interiors. Quay Quinn Wolf evokes an encounter with the domestic, but on closer look discomforts: his assemblage recontextualizes a hospital bed’s steel railing into a discursive grid, rendered banal—but not passive—on the gallery floor. In a beguilingly diaphanous sculpture, Daniel Klaas Beckwith probes the uncanny: his silk spider web directly questions our desire to look closely, to engage with the mundane. Vladislav Markov’s velour panels, a triptych and a pair of draped fabrics, harken to archaic textiles while bearing the mark of a futuristic symbolism. Tenant of Culture frames an abstracted quilt, stitched from fragments of handbags and discarded garments, yet retains traces of their origins—literally keeping the tags on, and in plain view.

– Holly Bushman

Daniel Klaas Beckwith , environmental threat, 2020 , silk, polyester, metal pins, 40 x 40 inches (102 x 102 cm)

eddy, 2020, exhibition view, M 2 3, New York

Clare Koury, Feast of the Ascension, 2020, Track light heads, corn kernels, double cherry tokens, Cosmic Brownies , 117 x 12 x 6 inches (297 x 21 x 15 cm)

eddy, 2020, exhibition view, M 2 3, New York

Clare Koury, Panic Bars, 2020, panic bars, hardware, 36 x 10 x 2.5 inches (92 x 25 x 6 cm)

Quay Quinn Wolf, Try to Relax, 2020, chrome hospital bed side rails, steel zip ties, stainless steel screw clamps, selenite, leather, custom polyester straps, 30 x 25 x 4 inches (76 x 64 x 10 cm)

eddy, 2020, exhibition view, M 2 3, New York

Quay Quinn Wolf, Try to Relax, 2020, chrome hospital bed side rails, steel zip ties, stainless steel screw clamps, selenite, leather, custom polyester straps, 30 x 25 x 4 inches (76 x 64 x 10 cm)

eddy, 2020, exhibition view, M 2 3, New York

Tenant of Culture, Grip and Stitch, 2020, Steel, recycled hand bag linings, miscellaneous recycled garment pieces, thread, padding , 29 x 21.5 x 5 in (74 x 54 x 12 cm)

eddy, 2020, exhibition view, M 2 3, New York

Vladislav Markov (left to right), Burnout (with where my car is at), 2020 , Burnout (4,12), 2020, Burnout (ETA ten minutes), 2020, chemical fiber etching on velour, approximately 68 x 44 inches (173 x 112 cm) each panel

Vladislav Markov, Burnout (GSC), 2020, chemical etching on cotton jersey, 69 x 16 x 5.5 inches (175 x 41 x 14 cm); Vladislav Markov, Burnout (is 15), 2020, chemical etching on cotton jersey, 69 x 9 x 5.5 inches (175 x 23 x 14 cm)

eddy, 2020, exhibition view, M 2 3, New York

Clare Koury, Panic Bars, 2020, panic bars, hardware, 36 x 10 x 2.5 inches (92 x 25 x 6 cm)

Quay Quinn Wolf, Try to Relax, 2020, chrome hospital bed side rails, steel zip ties, stainless steel screw clamps, selenite, leather, custom polyester straps, 30 x 25 x 4 inches (76 x 64 x 10 cm)