ARLENE SHECHET
ALL AT ONCE
A twenty year survey
Institute of Contemporary Art Boston, 2015
“Taken together, this is some of the most imaginative American sculpture of the past 20 years, and some of the most radically personal. “
detail, Because of the Wind, 2010. Glazed ceramic, steel, glazed kiln bricks. 60.75 x 14 x 14 inches.
Installation view, All At Once, twenty-year survey at the ICA Boston, 2015.
Installation view, All At Once, twenty-year survey at the ICA Boston, 2015.
Best Behavior, 2014-2015. Glazed ceramic, glazed kiln shelf, painted and carved hardwood. 45.5 x 20 x 20 inches.
Shechet's work is ostensibly abstract, but it has a disarming - and occasionally alarming - ability to connect us with wordless interior cadences, forgotten pains, and epiphanies. Through recondite experimental processes, Shechet finds forms, colors, and textures for states of being that can approximate comedic collapse, gritted resistance, erotic exuberance, spiritual confusion, luxurious indolence, and private dismay. The approximations, mind you, are not in the work; they enter the equation only as we try to account for them.
Installation view, All At Once, twenty-year survey at the ICA Boston, 2015.
Installation view, All At Once, twenty-year survey at the ICA Boston, 2015.
Absolutely, 2014. Cast pigmented cotton. 40 x 30 inches. / Away, 2014. Cast pigmented cotton. 40 x 30 inches.
Installation view, All At Once, twenty-year survey at the ICA Boston, 2015.
