Blackston is pleased to present Unnaming of Parts, a sculpture exhibition curated by Glynnis McDaris and Rhiannon Kubicka featuring work by Ivin Ballen, Rachel Beach, Edwin Burdis, Andrea Claire, Julia Dault, Tyler Drosdeck, Peter Eide, Frank Haines, Anya Keilar, Paul Kopkau, Rhys Lee, Sam Moyer and Johannes VanDerBeek. An opening reception will be held on Sunday, November 22nd from 6 to 8 p.m. at the gallery.

Philosophy has long been tied to the world of sculpture, often through the exploration of propositions: tension and suspension, truth and falsehood, and earthly versus ethereal dualities. Unnaming of Parts explores these states of being through the idea of contingency. Thirteen artists offer distinct, sometimes lyrical, sometimes rigorous sculptures that explore contingency through structural dependence or a more conceptual reliance of one idea upon another.

Edwin Burdis’s Affection (Run’s Out), a formed and lusciously painted, paper sculpture operates on an emotional level through his mark making and choice of material, while also relying upon coins acting as weights to hold the sculpture in an upright, active shape. In contrast, Andrea Claire’s stacked blank canvases are imbued with meaning through their introduction of the ‘unknown’, the classic blank canvas.

The pieces in the exhibition find yet another dialogue in the interplay between one another. These conversations create a new narrative, giving each work an additional perspective through the context of their surroundings.

Johannes Vanderbeek’s ‘holographic’ indian achieves its ghostly appearance through the use of a fine mesh screen that has been delicately, almost wispily, painted. This figure also seems to speak to traditions and mysticism in past cultures while introducing a wholly technological concept, the hologram.

Similarly, Peter Eide finds inspiration in the history of Devils Tower, Wyoming, America’s first national monument and a sacred site for numerous American Indian tribes. Instead of (illegitimately) removing rocks from the volcanic land-form, he created site-specific casts from boulders at the monument’s summit. These plaster and resin casts reinvent the rocks as beautiful, present day objects while borrowing from Devils Tower’s natural, geological and spiritual history. Both pieces explore the cultural and geographic past through the use of new materials.

The show looks to layered dialogues: the subtext, the overt, and the overarching in addition to the quiet, the conversational, and the loud to find the importance and meaning of concept, form, and structure. Experienced together as a whole, a dissonant cohesion forms out of the reverberation between individual works, showcasing the integrity and autonomy of each piece.

McDaris is an artist and curator based in New York City, originally from Memphis, TN. Her recent curatorial projects have included God is in the Details, a satellite show in collaboration with Prospect 1, the New Orleans biennial and What Comes Naturally; Contemporary Flowers, at the project space Fake Estate with a satellite performance by Blanko & Noiry at Evas Arche un der Feminist at Gavin Brown.

She was the co-editor of the book Catholic, published by DAP and co-curator of the accompanying exhibition which opened in NY at Guild and Greyshkul and then traveled to Tokyo and Melbourne.

Her solo shows have included Surfaces at Bespoke Gallery, New York, NY (2009), Rising and Falling Forever at Fake Estate, New York, NY (2007); Saturday into Sunday at Bespoke Gallery (2005); My Vacation at Modern Culture at The Gershwin, New York, NY (2004). Her work has been exhibited in group shows at John Connelly, Rivington Arms, Castello di Rivoli and Galleri S.E.

Her work has been widely published. Most recently, she was a featured photographer and cover artist for the 2009 Rizzoli publication, Shoot; Photography of the Moment. She is guest co-editor of upcoming issue #41 of Blind Spot magazine.

McDaris has produced and consulted on numerous projects through her company, Wildcat, including events for Creative Time, the 59th minute, Yvonne Force’s Mother Inc performance, and Blind Spot & Photo-based Art’s labs, which include the production of site specific art works.

McDaris attended Pratt Institute as a photography major and art history minor.