Break the mold: Adam Silverman debuts new ceramic works at Friedman Benda
‘There's a lot of overlap,’ explains LA ceramic artist Adam Silverman when discussing Ground Control, his debut solo exhibition at New York's Friedman Benda and its relation to Body Language, his recent two-gallery solo exhibition at Culver City's Cherry and Martin.
The big differences: new non-functional pots (there were no vessels in the previous show) that are mostly installed directly on the floor (with a few pieces atop burnt Japanese shou-sugi-ban pedestals and shelves). The clay-festooned, tie-dyed denim wall installation he debuted in LA has also grown by a panel (with glossy purple hunks of clay, which blend into the fabric more, replacing the matte Yves Klein Blue hunks he used last time).
‘Part of the title is that it is on the ground and it does control how you move around the space,’ says Silverman, who painted the floor a dark chocolate brown. ‘But it doesn't dictate in the sense that it has arrows like an Ikea store telling you which way to move.’
That movement, defined in his previous outing, was inspired by the conceptual choreography of Merce Cunningham. Instead of highlighting the frozen moments in dance as he did in LA, Silverman arranged a ‘choreographic map’ that explores motion, defining the space around his clay creations, while still allowing for improvisation.
‘It's telling you to move somewhere in this space and start and stop where you want, but don't occupy this space, move around it,’ he says, noting the best way to experience the installation may be after the opening when you can move through it alone or with one other person. ‘It's also subterranean with a window onto the street, so there's another way to experience it from above, almost as if they were looking down on a stage. The light comes down the wall and we changed all the lightbulbs, so it's a warm yellow bath of light. It's a very New York experience.’
Highlights include a matte glazed yellow pot – the first time he's shown this glaze – some figurative vessels (with a mouth-like opening) and an extruded worm-like creation. This time around his assemblages explore verticality (against planar crags functioning as plinths) rather than horizontality (with them as backdrops). Again, playing to his surroundings.
One standout piece is a black assemblage that was ‘violently assaulted’, says Silverman. ‘There are pieces getting stuck through the surface, piercing the surface, then it's rammed onto this base. There's a lot of physical alteration going on in a not so subtle way.’
INFORMATION
’Adam Silverman: Ground Control’ is on view until 11 June. For more details, visit the Friedman Benda website
ADDRESS
Friedman Benda
515 West 26th Street
New York, NY 10001
Wallpaper* Newsletter
Receive our daily digest of inspiration, escapism and design stories from around the world direct to your inbox.
-
Maude’s Brâncuși-inspired sex toys go on display in a new Paris exhibition
Maude’s design-led vibrators are now on display at Musée des Arts Décoratifs in Paris, as part of ‘Private Lives: From the Bedroom to Social Media’. Brand founder Éva Goicochea talks to Wallpaper* about partnering with the museum and opening up cultural conversations around sex
By India Birgitta Jarvis Published
-
‘I was captivated by the idea of merging two iconic brands’: Nigo on his 1990s-inspired collaboration with Moncler and Mercedes-Benz
Unveiled at Moncler’s ‘The City of Genius’ event in Shanghai this past weekend, Japanese fashion designer Nigo unpacks his three-way collaboration with Moncler and Mercedes-Benz, which includes a play on the G-Class alongside a fashion collection in his eclectic style
By Jack Moss Published
-
Cathay Pacific’s new business class Aria Suites take flight
Cathay Pacific raises the bar for business-class travel with the launch of the much-anticipated Aria Suites
By Lauren Ho Published
-
Genesis Belanger is seduced by the real and the fake in London
Sculptor Genesis Belanger’s solo show, ‘In the Right Conditions We Are Indistinguishable’, is open at Pace, London
By Emily Steer Published
-
Brutalism in film: the beautiful house that forms the backdrop to The Room Next Door
The Room Next Door's production designer discusses mood-boarding and scene-setting for a moving film about friendship, fragility and the final curtain
By Anne Soward Published
-
'There’s an anxiety under all of it': Violet Dennison in New York
Violet Dennison debuts abstract paintings with new show 'Damaged Self' at Tara Downs Gallery
By Mary Cleary Published
-
‘Gas Tank City’, a new monograph by Andrew Holmes, is a photorealist eye on the American West
‘Gas Tank City’ chronicles the artist’s journey across truck-stop America, creating meticulous drawings of fleeting moments
By Jonathan Bell Published
-
Mark Armijo McKnight’s bodily landscapes capture the tactile serenity of the American West
The artist’s new exhibition at the Whitney Museum, which is organised by the museum curator Drew Sawyer, offers a succinct window into his contemplative suggestion of queering a landscape
By Osman Can Yerebakan Published
-
Dark, glamorous and hedonistic: a photography book captures New York in the 1990s
New York: High Life, Low Life, by Dafydd Jones, goes behind the scenes of New York society
By Hannah Silver Published
-
Derrick Alexis Coard’s portraits are a sensitive, positive testimony to Black men
The late artist Derrick Alexis Coard’s retrospective ‘I Am That I Am’, at New York’s Salon 94, honours his ‘symbolic expression for possible change for the African-American male community’
By Tianna Williams Published
-
Intimacy, violence and the uncanny: Joanna Piotrowska in Philadelphia
Artist and photographer Joanna Piotrowska stages surreal scenes at the Institute of Contemporary Art at the University of Pennsylvania
By Hannah Silver Published