Helen Mirra at Nordenhake

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"As measurements of time and being, the 13 woven pieces capture in yarn the somatic activities of standing, extending arms, articulating hands, breathing, and sensing."

The Marxist commodity fetish was, confusingly named, our mistaken relation to capital's objects as an economic rather than human social relations, it was a concealment: the aluminum clamshell of your laptop being seen as economic product of capital innovation itself, rather than the hand-sweat of laborers distanced beneath gloves. A price tag for a face. Almost nothing is this world is actually automated - everything you touch is hand-made by workers. This separation of our social relations we've so completely assimilated that labor itself returns as a literal fetishism, stitches mark this labor, look compelling, can be brought out onto white walls, as aura, as artwork. Every cheap objects is an equal tapestry. The stitches in time are smoother, hidden. Hold up your child's plastic toy and feel another at its end.

See too: Melvin Edwards at Daniel Buchholz, 

Rémy Zaugg at Nordenhake

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Conceptual art's withdrawal as a form of authority, denial as a form of strength, austerity to prove control, an iron grip of anality. The fissure immaculately conceives something tight enough to be mistaken for diamonds. The bureaucrat dressed in white suddenly looks like a doctor, and latex hands prove reason for his digging. Attempts to confuse the situation by making you the subject.


see too: John Knight at REDCAT, John Knight at Cabinet, John Knight at Greene Naftali