Corner of the World

Corner of the World
Curated by Amanda Roscoe Mayo
August 3 – September 2, 2012
Reception Friday, August 3rd, 7:00-10:00 pm

Macarthur B Arthur is pleased to present Corner of the World, featuring the work of Jarrod Beck, Phil LaDeau, Elizabeth Moran, and Margo Wolowiec. This exhibition, curated by Amanda Roscoe Mayo, offers a look into how imagination and memory shapes the content of interior and intimate spaces.

For Gaston Bachelard, a “corner of the world” describes the space of a dwelling. In his seminal text The Poetics of Space these corners are intimate, for they are derived from an identification of a given architectural space as “home.” The content here is sensitive – that of the mind – while its architectural framework is a sturdy vessel. Imagination is of the utmost importance in determining the balance of one’s own corner of the world. Robert Irwin ponders, “our perception presents us with (at every moment) an infinitely complex, dynamic, whole envelope of the world and our being in it.” Corner of the World presents artists whose practices remember, capture, and explore conceptually, notions of spaces that are intimate to them, and perhaps us, if we allow ourselves in.

Jarrod Beck’s (New York, NY) drawings engage physical spaces as they relate to natural and imagined architecture. Plaster casts are elucidated as drawings; they usher into the exhibition space the experience of nature.

Phil LaDeau’s (Austin, TX) drawings delineate space as specific to location. Macarthur B Arthur will become the catalyst for these drawings, which focus on their own materiality as an expression of their occupied space and the spaces they subsequently occupy.

The work of Elizabeth Moran (San Francisco, CA) is approached from the standpoint of the intersection between sites of work and habitation. These photographs of the sets of kink.com when not in use are images loaded with projections of intimacy for all those who encounter these scenes in the context of her practice. The emptiness of these scenes encourages recollection inside of a seemingly foreign place.

Margo Wolowiec (San Francisco, CA) brings us to her homes by sewing their architectural features (from memory) into tissue paper. Like the memory of these places, her sculptures appear simultaneously fragile yet somehow resilient. Memories are overtly present in these works, whether it is that of our own, or ones we share collectively.