Frozen forms: dance inspires Adam Silverman's new sculptural installations

‘For a couple years I've been working on how to have pieces become compositions,’ says ceramic artist Adam Silverman, standing amidst several new sculptural installations at Cherry & Martin, where he just unveiled his debut solo show, ‘Body Language,’ with the Culver City gallery over the weekend. ‘A lot of this was looking at ways to do still-lifes.’
Though the works in this new exhibition, which have been developing for almost a year, aren't overtly referential to any source images or inspirations, they are meant to evoke the gestural and anatomical features of dance.
‘I think about the photography of dance where someone captures a moment that nobody saw or wasn't intended by the dancer. The choreographer is not thinking about it, and it doesn't really exist as a moment. And then sometimes dance stops and something physical and static is created,’ says Silverman, pointing to the pageantry of his new works, most of which are balanced atop stands (of varying heights) made from burnt Japanese shou-sugi-ban lumber. ‘This is a moment of frozen motion, the form is frozen at a certain point, the wheel stops, my hand stops, and then later there's the motion of people around them.’
Inside a little cove in the anterior gallery, Silverman also made a feint at painting with a site-specific installation‚ featuring rolls of tie-dyed indigo denim unspooled down the walls and floors that are fitted with matte blobs of clay glazed in Yves Klein-like blue that almost feels like a bleached out altar from some defunct surf cult. He says it can also be read as a nod to the conceptual arrangements of American dancer Merce Cunningham.
‘I studied architecture but my girlfriend in college was a dancer, so both of those things are always inside me,’ says Silverman, who made the denim with the idea of using it as some type of painting while the clay could work as an assemblage. However, he didn't bring everything together until he was challenged by the architecture of the gallery. ‘When you think about how Merce Cunningham would do choreography it was in a vacuum with someone doing the set, costumes, and music separately and they would merge together in the space.’
More spatial dynamics play out between two indigo glazed pieces in the vestibule that appear to mimic the torsos of dancers (with some decorative elements that evoke some kind of abstract, ancient language).
‘It's two bodies that are creating another body and then a negative space, which is as important as each of the works,’ says Silverman, who typically makes a group of forms that sit unglazed for months until he decides on a technique. To wit, beehive-like works are marked by big brush strokes of green glazes, a piece beneath it is the result of pouring multiple hues of blue; and a crackled white ovoid was made from three different clays smeared over the original form with three different glazes, some of which are chipped off to expose raw patches of clay. Though perhaps the most exciting moments come in the form of his new still-lifes, which balance egg-like forms against rough planar crags. ‘I like how they read flat from the front and then are very spatial from the side,’ says Silverman. ‘There's a lot of violence in it.’
As Jim Morrison once said, violence isn't always evil, it's our infatuation with it that's the problem. Unfortunately for us, it's hard not to be become smitten with Silverman's sexy new body language.
The works are meant to evoke the gestural and anatomical features of dance
‘I studied architecture but my girlfriend in college was a dancer, so both of those things are always inside me,’ says Silverman
For the exhibit, Silverman also made a feint at painting with a site-specific installation‚ featuring rolls of tie-dyed indigo denim unspooled down the walls and floors
INFORMATION
’Adam Silverman: Body Language’ is on view until 14 May. For more information visit the Cherry and Martin website
ADDRESS
2712 S. La Cienega Boulevard
Los Angeles, California 90034
Receive our daily digest of inspiration, escapism and design stories from around the world direct to your inbox.
-
The best Ruth Asawa exhibition is actually on the streets of San Francisco
The artist, now the subject of a major retrospective at SFMOMA, designed many public sculptures scattered across the Bay Area – you just have to know where to look
-
Spend the night at architect Geoffrey Bawa’s former home in Colombo
The godfather of Tropical Modernism’s Number 11 residence now features a brand new guest suite furnished with the Sri Lankan architect’s very own curios
-
London’s best pizza restaurant gets a new home in Mayfair
Secure a slice of New York-style pizza in central London as Crisp Pizza teams up with the Devonshire pub to set up shop in the relaunched The Marlborough
-
The best Ruth Asawa exhibition is actually on the streets of San Francisco
The artist, now the subject of a major retrospective at SFMOMA, designed many public sculptures scattered across the Bay Area – you just have to know where to look
-
Orlando Museum of Art wants to showcase more Latin American and Hispanic artists. Do you fit the bill?
The Florida gallery calls for for Hispanic and Latin American artists to submit their work for an ongoing exhibition
-
The spread of Butter: the Black-owned art fair where artists see all the profits
The Indianapolis-based art fair is known for bringing Black art to the forefront. As it ventures out of state to make its Los Angeles debut, we speak with founders Mali and Alan Bacon to find out more
-
Steve Martin wants you to visit The Frick Collection
The actor has appeared in a video promoting New York’s newly renovated art museum
-
Rolf Sachs’ largest exhibition to date, ‘Be-rühren’, is a playful study of touch
A collection of over 150 of Rolf Sachs’ works speaks to his preoccupation with transforming everyday objects to create art that is sensory – both emotionally and physically
-
Architect Erin Besler is reframing the American tradition of barn raising
At Art Omi sculpture and architecture park, NY, Besler turns barn raising into an inclusive project that challenges conventional notions of architecture
-
The dynamic young gallerists reinvigorating America's art scene
'Hugging has replaced air kissing' in this new wave of galleries with craft and community at their core
-
Meet the New York-based artists destabilising the boundaries of society
A new show in London presents seven young New York-based artists who are pushing against the borders between refined aesthetics and primal materiality