Objects that arouse, titillate and terrify are all locked up in Tom Sachs’ Wunderkammern – cabinets of curiosity the artist has constructed for an exhibition at Sperone Westwater, ‘Objects of Devotion’. Sachs is an artist who, whether critical or not, appreciates stuff as stuff, whether ubiquitous or rare. He’s long been obsessed with remaking things: from Sony cameras to NASA memorabilia and his sister’s Barbie dolls, creating irresistible sculptures in miniature and on a large-scale, fashioned from his favoured materials such as duct tape, plywood, epoxy resin and foamcore.
Inspired by the exoticism and eroticism of cabinets of curiosities that date back to the Renaissance, Sachs’ own ‘theatre of the world’, The Cabinet (2014), is at first glance full of weapons and tools – but each has a name, referring to someone who affected the artist, from his mother to the Supreme Court. Other cabinets collect more autobiographical objects from the artist’s life, a self-portrait through things, found and fabricated: the most recent cabinet work in the exhibition, Rockeths, (2017), could be a compact rendition of the artist’s studio.
Rockeths, 2017, mixed media
From the cabinets, the exhibition meanders into similar themes on collecting, such as Mars Rocks (2012), individual ‘Mars’ rocks, gathered by Sachs’ studio team for his 2012 installation Space Program 2.0: MARS, and Synthetic Mars Rocks (2016). Neatly organised on their shelves, these will satisfy anyone with OCD tendencies.
From outer space to up-close, in a more recent work, McMasterbation, (2016), Sachs takes what is apparently the least sexiest object, the most comprehensive hardware catalogue in circulation, and highlights its recurrent phallic and vaginal shapes. He relates this analogy to his own use, ‘drooling over this bible of tooling’.
‘Objects of Devotion’ coincides with a touring museum survey on Sachs, opened at Nasher Sculpture Center, Dallas, on 16 September.
MESA (Modular Equipment Stowage Assembly), 2007-2012, mixed media.
Moon Rock Box: Nevada, 2008-2009, mixed media.
Choad, 2017, mixed media.
INFORMATION
‘Objects of Devotion’ is on view until 28 October. For more information, visit the Sperone Westwater website
ADDRESS
Sperone Westwater
257 Bowery
New York
-
Inside the Waldorf Astoria's dazzling restoration, from cigar smoke to snowy owlsHow a team of architects from SOM and a group of art conservationists brought New York's grand dame back to her original Art Deco splendor
-
How do you modernise a home without making it feel modern? This farmhouse renovation is a stunning case studyA 300-year-old English farmhouse has been given a new lease of life while staying true to the old ways
-
Meet Studio Knight Stokoe, the landscape architects guided by ‘resilience, regeneration and empathy’Boutique and agile, Studio Knight Stokoe crafts elegant landscapes from its base in the southwest of England – including a revived brutalist garden
-
The best Ruth Asawa exhibition is actually on the streets of San FranciscoThe 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 profitsThe 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 CollectionThe 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 touchA 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 raisingAt 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 societyA new show in London presents seven young New York-based artists who are pushing against the borders between refined aesthetics and primal materiality
