In yesterday's post we looked at specimen marble pieces from the 18th and 19th centuries and attempted a comparison with fashion. But there are also artists working along the same lines, creating works in which different small segments create fascinating compositions.
Polly Apfelbaum, for example, handcrafted last year quilt-like ceramic works during an extended residency at Arcadia University, in Glenside, Pennsylvania.
The multidisciplinary artist combines art history, the applied arts, and popular culture in her installations in which she often assembles fabrics or rugs, ceramics, drawings, paintings, sculptures and found objects. Apfelbaum will launch her next exhibition entitled "For the Love of Una Hale" in a few weeks' time (February 3 through April 17, 2022) at Arcadia Exhibitions (Arcadia University, 450 S. Easton Road, Glenside, PA).
The event examines the early influence of artist, antiques dealer, gardener and drag show performer (as Una Hale) David Ellinger (1913-2003), whose paintings hung in artist Polly Apfelbaum's childhood home in nearby Abington, and of Pennsylvania German craft traditions on the artist's hybrid sensibility.
Among the pieces on display there will also be terracotta and glaze pieces like Apfelbaum's "Joseph's Coat Abstract", "Purple Fire" and "Pennsylvania Diamond Quilt" (all 2021). In these pieces the artist created geometrical abstractions or kaleidoscope-like configurations using coloured segments (you can imagine them replicated on luxury bags, so you can bet Apfelbaum will at some point be asked by a prominent fashion brand to do a collaboration of some sort…). Some of them evoke intricate Amish style quilts; others call to mind the geometrical beauty of specimen marble table tops, but all of them are ways for the artists to go back in time and trace her inspirations.
"The goal is to interpret the personal as political," states Apfelbaum in a press release about this exhibition. "I'm starting to look back at my history, where the inspiration came from, and how my personal experiences relate to the complex life and work of the painter David Ellinger."
Image credits for this post
Polly Apfelbaum,"Joseph's Coat Abstract", 2021, terracotta and glaze. Courtesy of the artist and Arcadia Exhibitions.
Polly Apfelbaum, "Purple Fire", 2021, terracotta and glaze. Courtesy of the artist and Arcadia Exhibitions.
Polly Apfelbaum, "Pennsylvania Diamond Quilt", 2021, terracotta and glaze. Courtesy of the artist, Frith Street Gallery, London, and Galerie nächst St. Stephan, Vienna.