Two elements from Natalie Purshwitz's current Artspeak exhibition, Overflow Chart, where the emphasis is not specific to medium (e.g. ceramics), but on materials at various stages of development (from tree leaves to plastic, from the "organic" to the "refined", from the "finished" to the "ruined") and their arrangement, as one might arrange a floral bouquet.
Across the gallery, at what looks to be a reception desk, a selection of take-away watercolours and a bowl of charred sticks with which to register our footprint on them.
I thought a lot about Natalie's decision to mount these arrangements on the wall, as it were, effectively taking away our ability to circle them, as one would a modern sculpture. I don't think it's disingenuous to argue that the artist might prefer it that we not have access to all that a work has to offer, at least materially; that objects, if we consider them to be sentient, are entitled to a private life. And if we don't like it? Well, we can just take it out on those watercolours, write: IN PLACE OF WHAT LIES AHEAD on their horizons.
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