J. Parker Valentine at Max Mayer
Artist: J. Parker Valentine
Venue: Max Mayer, Düsseldorf
Exhibition Title: Transients in the High Plains
Date: March 16 – May 5, 2018
Full gallery of images, press release and link available after the jump.
Images:
Images courtesy of Max Mayer, Düsseldorf
Press Release:
“In the life of wandering, not only what is carried has to be portable, but the means for carrying things have to be found and developed.“[1]
Textile—woven fabric—since its invention, has been used as clothing to cover our bodies. Given its flexibility and mobility, though, it has additionally been used to make transportable shelter.
This “sheltering”—individual framing and contextualization via a material canvas—is significant to J. Parker Valentine’s third exhibition at the gallery for various reasons:
On the one hand, sheltering is significant in its expression of a fabric’s materiality, the serial practice of weaving, and the feminine tradition of its use as an architectural element of interior spaces. On the other hand, given that textile serves as both Wand and Leinwand in this exhibition, it becomes clear that her work develops out of a spatial practice, whose graphic elements are always posed in relation to their supports and the space they inhabit. These graphic marks indicate an open-ended process that is both space and media-specific. They refer to a graphic practice that simultaneously suggests material and gesture without ever pointing to an origin. In this regard, her work puts practice before practitioner and action before actor.
[1] “The Pliable Plane: Textiles in Architecture“ by Anni Albers. Thanks to Katrin Mayer for suggesting this text.