SAM EKWURTZEL – LATE MORNING EARLY SPRING
2016-09-12Sam Ekwurtzel’s exhibition refers to an 8 minute period occurring on the morning of March 30, 2016. 10:35 am – 10:42 am to be exact. This is the period for which Ekwurtzel was able to acquire a small group of building materials manufactured by United States Gypsum Corporation and National Gypsum Company, Charlotte Pipe Foundry and Tyler Pipe Foundry. The materials were not generated specifically for the exhibition; rather they were synchronously pulled from the four independent production lines or purchased from distributors. There is a melancholic sentiment looming over the show as it explores three aspects of time: systematized time demarcated by the logic of industrial production; the incomprehensibility of geologic deep time; and the feeling of biological time, the changes that occur to one’s body as it ages.
These materials can be found in every building in New York City, hidden and enmeshed beneath and within a building’s surfaces and utilities. Cast iron drainage pipe is used to quietly convey wastewater from innumerable tributaries toward sewer mains. Cement board is used as a planar substrate for tile in moisture prone areas such as washrooms and showers. Although different companies produce cement board and cast iron pipe, the final products are essentially the same because they must satisfy common building code regulations and third party testing requirements. To facilitate quality control, each company time stamps each manufactured piece with its specific moment of creation. Ekwurtzel has synchronized, in the pieces on view, cement board and pipes made at the same time but by competing manufacturers; twins that meet for the first time and become inextricably linked once reclassified as art. The rarity of this meeting cannot be overstated, as well as the humor and absurdity of the gesture. But the experience of looking at things that are technically identical (but commercially distinct) reveals a wide variety of differences: individualism lurking in the bowels of automated, industrialized production.
Exhibition runs through to October 16th, 2016
Simone Subal Gallery
131 Bowery, 2nd floor
New York, NY
NY 10002
New York
