Susanne Hilberry Gallery
700 Livernois

Ferndale, MI 48220
248-541-4700

www.susannehilberrygallery.com
Sept 25 through November 2.


Susanne Hilberry’s much anticipated gallery has arrived in Ferndale. It’s a fabulous space, capable of properly displaying a diverse range of work. The building maintains a unique feeling of openness made possible by full-length glass on the east and west ends, and a skylight. Artists will covet the opportunity to show here. New York artist Richard Artschwager receives the enviable position of the inaugural show.


The range and diversity of Artschwager’s work has the appearance of a group show. Throughout his career, this near octogenarian has never been content to stick to one venue or medium and continues to defy labels today. An introduction to Artschwager details his working as a furniture maker before focusing his energy solely on his art. His work is described as exploring the “relation between furniture and sculpture, sculpture and painting and furniture and photography.” This statement gives him a lot of latitude to explore, and he does. The central theme throughout the work is the idea of the convergence of one thing as another thing. Working strictly within a discipline can lead to great novelty, but Artschwager prefers to explore the space between the disciplines – a space full of potential discoveries.


In that space between photography and sculpture, Artschwager has invented a lot. For instance he makes a chair-like sculpture adorned with photos of the chair parts where these parts would be on a real chair. The piece ends up being something not quite sculpture nor is it photography exhibit. It is uniquely its own thing.


The exploration of juxtaposition of photographs and sculpture continues with a series of box-like sculptures decaled with images of people. A particularly engaging piece, “live in your head” has a child covering his ears sitting cross-legged in a cabinet of sorts. The piece is perhaps a sculptural model of a child sitting down, or perhaps a photographic x-ray view of the interior projected onto the outside of the child-shaped box. It’s a piece about confinement and always being on display at the same time.


Continuing to collapse the border between art and furniture, in “Splatter Chair”, Artschwager, creates an exploded or flattened chair onto the wall. Though still recognizable, it is certainly no longer furniture, but mounted on the wall it takes on the role usually given to painting.


He has created wall pieces that have the appearance of landscape paintings. They are also in fact tactile sculptural relief pieces. They are objects that demand to be felt like sculptures, yet have the appearance of paintings. On a similar vein, Artschwager has manufactured large silhouetted cut outs of artificial hair. They beg to be touched or rubbed up against, while remaining graceful visual pieces.


The piece “Location” epitomizes the overall theme of one thing existing as another. In the piece Artschwager repeats six times an ovoid shape in a multitude of ways. (The ovoid itself is two meanings in one, both a representation of the egg - a symbol of creation, and of zero – a symbol of emptiness. In the act of creation, something comes from nothing.) The ovoid is made, respectively, from a mirror, his trademark artificial hair, a black painted wooden 3-dimensional ovoid, a black framed piece of glass, a polished black ceramic and a box with a glass front stenciled with the outline of the ovoid. Perhaps this piece can sum up the show. One thing as another, repeated in as many variations as Artschwager can wrap his mind around.


Alongside what visual and philosophical impact the pieces may provide, the diversity and complexity of Artschwager’s career also offer this reminder for his audience: we are all unique human beings with unique sets of experiences and a distinct perspective on life, all of us have something to offer about that experience. We don’t fit neatly into one category or another, but are many things at once. Artschwager put his mind, his skills and his efforts towards expressing that which interested him, confounded him or amused him and shares that unique vantage point with his audience.


It’s a great space and an amazing display of a single person’s creativity not to be overlooked.