SAM MOYER ROBERT RHEE MARTIN SOTO CLIMENT MARIANNE VIERO

V&A is pleased to present Between the Cup and Lip – a group show including work by Sam Moyer, Robert Rhee, Martin Soto Climent, and Marianne Viero.

In “Between the Cup and Lip,” each of the four artists embraces the space between concept or expectation and the art object – the volatile, fragile moment in making art where failure, however it may be defined, looms. Using unaltered familiar objects, the artists all attempt to subvert current principles of and attitudes toward the art object without abandoning contemporary process or sensibility. Each artist manipulates the chosen objects through placement and proximity. This slight manipulation undoes the expectation inherent to the object’s purpose and subverts an otherwise immediate interpretation. Through a simple gesture, “slip” or act of creation, each chooses to step away from tendencies to be ironic or anti-object.

SAM MOYER connects and paints two branches that extend like arms into space. She carefully places a workman’s cotton gloves coated in red rubber on the end of each branch. Attached to the wall, the arms and hands, outstretched, seem to be reaching for something. Through her considered combination of materials, Moyer quietly references the importance of labor, inspiration and the positive act of creation.

ROBERT RHEE uses the bottom of a rubber plunger and replaces the handle with a six-foot tall, carved wooden dowel. Formal equivalents, the base and the handle create a seamless object that erases the purpose of the plunger and reveals Rhee’s interest in undoing immediate responses to materials commonplace materials.

MARTIN SOTO CLIMENT places a twisted flesh-colored bra on top of a wine bottle. A reinvention of a surrealist practice, Soto Climent’s piece emphasizes the possibility or inescapability and perhaps the importance of the object to contemporary artists and viewers. The bottle, transparent except for its label serves as a pedestal for its even more complex object that sits like a flower on top of a vase.

And in her photographic series – He A Plant – MARIANNE VIERO manipulates the traditional idea of the still life. Her images of dying plants or branches with dead leaves are placed in plastic cups on worn tablecloths hastily placed as backdrops and only partially covering the surfaces. However, Viero’s use of color, and the direct, late afternoon light suggests the traditional Dutch still-life, the beauty in surroundings, and the potential of the artist to situate her contemporary practice within an ancient pursuit of beauty.