
No Acrylic, inlaid burnishing clay on wood, 26 1/4” x 38 1/4
Press release:
On Friday, February 20, 2009, Western Exhibitions opens two news shows: In Gallery 1, we present a solo exhibition by Adriane Herman and in Gallery 2, a group show of new prints from Fresh Hot Press, a Madison, Wisconsin-based printmaking shop. Both shows open with a public reception from 5 to 8pm. The show will run from February 20 - March 28, 2009. A closing reception will take place on March 26 from 6-8 pm, in conjunction with the Southern Graphics Council Conference.
For decades Adriane Herman has instinctively archived minutiae that others would likely toss out without a thought or, even more likely, never have accumulated in the first place. For her third show at Western Exhibitions, she will present a series of inlaid burnishing clay tablets that take their inspiration from other people's "to do" lists. These wall-mounted tablets have surfaces that are extraordinary in every sense of the word - shiny, sensuous, even sublime. To make these works, Herman transposes a larger reproduction of her source image (a "to do" list) to a wooden board coated with 20 thin layers of burnishing clay. She carves out the text and fills it in with thin layers of an opposing color of clay. Next, she sands, polishes and burnishes the top layer of clay until the text/image is revealed, a laborious and time-consuming process whose resulting shine, that sublime surface, is all elbow grease - no varnishes or coatings. It has to be seen in person to be truly appreciated.
Nadine Wasserman, an independent critic and curator, aptly describes Herman's intentions in an essay for the recent show "Ruminant" held at the Institute of Contemporary Art in Portland, Maine:
Adriane Herman takes items that would normally be discarded and transforms them. Herman has collected an archive of other people's shopping and "to do" lists as a way to ascertain human action and intention and to reveal the human compulsion for order. List-making is often a coping mechanism and a way to organize an otherwise chaotic world. By recreating these lists in a more permanent and labor-intensive medium, Herman makes them monumental. Like a forger, she copies the look of the list as closely as possible into a clay medium and then burnishes the surface into a fine polish. In this way, they are transformed into culturally significant artifacts. Each list reveals individual characteristics about its anonymous writer. Some are neat, others are messy. While many of them list food items, some are statements of intention: "Get colored yarn. Only wool, no acrylic," "earn the resources to finish house and pay off debt," or "Lunch, check-in, nap, movie, dinner, drinks, sex, breakfast." One particular list even has corrected spelling. Unlike more public documents these bits of scrap paper exhibit inventories that were never intended for anyone but the writer. By monumentalizing this mundane activity, Herman shows us a raw and unrefined version of our own transient objectives.
Scott Speh
Owner and Director
Western Exhibitions
119 N Peoria St, #2A
Chicago, IL 60607
312-480-8390
http://www.westernexhibitions.com