The red-tinted images will be transferred soon. For now I mocked it up to show how it may look.
Important Structures Upheld, Intersection of Coffee Table and Labor, and Towel Stairs
Three sculptures at Important Structures Upheld, solo show at Essex Flowers, New York, NY. Oct 8 - Nov 6, 2021.
Curated by Camilla Padgitt-Coles.
This body of work, Important Structures Upheld, is a humorous meditation on power structures that are often deemed immutable and maintained at great costs. I invite viewers to think about labor inequities, scarcity, worker precarity, and isolation felt acutely today.
The quintessential socks and latex gloves, filled with sand and cement, serve as stand-ins for full bodies, for groups of people carrying, lifting, propping, and working together toward some end. These stuffed feet and hands "at work" evoke the dark humor of seeing vulnerable and soft beings propping up or intending to walk up structures that are either too heavy, unstable, or heartbreakingly perilous.
The work may serve, in part, as a modern-day, abstracted allegory of our foolhardy "achievements," our gullibility, and tragic tendency to misplace our efforts. And, on the other hand, our uplifting ability to work together to survive and to find joy in cooperation, in contact, even while oppressed, neglected, or massively bamboozled.
Thank you to Camilla Padgitt-Coles and the crew at Essex Flowers.
Intersection of Coffee Table and Labor
2020. 1 x 3 ft. US 8 / EU 38.5.
Intersection of Coffee Table and Labor. 2020. 1 x 3 ft. US 8 / EU 38.5. Found glass, wire, plaster, cotton.
The three works exhibited in the gallery room of Essex Flowers.
Important Structures Upheld (show namesake)
2018. Fruits, rocks, metal. 4 x 3 x 1 ft.
Important Structures Upheld (show namesake) was part of the solo show at Essex Flowers, New York, NY. Oct 8 - Nov 6, 2021.
More of this series can be found here (banana holders etc)
Towel Stairs (Don’t say I never made a towel stairs)
2019. Towel, fabric sculpting medium, cement. 1 x 2 x 1/2 ft.
Towel Stairs was part of the solo show at Essex Flowers, New York, NY. Oct 8 - Nov 6, 2021.
Slide two of this post is me talking about why I made the towel stairs very late in the evening. An artist statement of sorts!
Documentation of the work bench.
Thank you to Camilla Padgitt-Coles and the screw at Essex Flowers!
A Difficult Object That Is Very Much Ok With Itself (a readymade)
A Difficult Object That Is Very Much Ok With Itself (a readymade) - found discarded near a construction site in Berlin in 2022 and lugged home.
Towel Stairs
Slide two of this post is me talking about why I made the towel stairs very late in the evening. An artist statement of sorts!
Documentation of the work bench.
Solo show at Essex Flowers, New York, NY. Oct 8 - Nov 6, 2021.
Don’t say I never made a towel stairs. //
Towel stairs. 2019. Towel, fabric sculpting medium, cement. 1 x 2 x 1/2 ft.
Towel Stairs was part of my solo show exhibit November 2021.
https://essexflowers.us/KATYA-ROZANOVA
This body of work, Important Structures Upheld, is a humorous meditation on power structures that society often deems immutable and aims to maintain at all costs. Essential-for-survival everyday objects, such as cheap white towels and socks from a bodega, found industrial building materials such as rocks, latex gloves, glass, rods, lashing straps and basic fruits like bananas and oranges arranged in unlikely and precarious structures. These assemblages gesture towards holding up or attempting to reach something that may be unreachable, absent, dangerous, or simply not worth the effort.
The quintessential socks and latex gloves, filled with sand and cement, serve as stand-ins for full bodies, for groups of people carrying, lifting, propping, and working together toward some end. These not-quite-realistic, slapstick style, stuffed feet and hands "at work" evoke the dark humor of seeing vulnerable and soft beings propping up or intending to walk up structures that are either too heavy, unstable, or heartbreakingly perilous.
The towel stairs used to be called Don’t say I never made a towel stairs but then i was told it was too annoying.
important structures upheld
Solo show at Essex Flowers, New York, NY. Oct 8 - Nov 6, 2021.
2918. Fruits, rocks, metal. 4 x 3 x 1 ft.
https://essexflowers.us/KATYA-ROZANOVA
This body of work, Important Structures Upheld, is a humorous meditation on power structures that society often deems immutable and aims to maintain at all costs. Essential-for-survival everyday objects, such as cheap white towels and socks from a bodega, found industrial building materials such as rocks, latex gloves, glass, rods, lashing straps and basic fruits like bananas and oranges arranged in unlikely and precarious structures. These assemblages gesture towards holding up or attempting to reach something that may be unreachable, absent, dangerous, or simply not worth the effort.
The quintessential socks and latex gloves, filled with sand and cement, serve as stand-ins for full bodies, for groups of people carrying, lifting, propping, and working together toward some end. These not-quite-realistic, slapstick style, stuffed feet and hands "at work" evoke the dark humor of seeing vulnerable and soft beings propping up or intending to walk up structures that are either too heavy, unstable, or heartbreakingly perilous.
The work may serve, in part, as a modern-day, abstracted allegory of our foolhardy "achievements," our gullibility, and tragic tendency to misplace our efforts. And, on the other hand, our uplifting ability to work together to survive and to find joy in cooperation, in contact with one another, even while oppressed, neglected, or massively bamboozled.
Other iterations
Speakers
Sculptures made from paper pulp connected through speaker wire sit on chairs facing each other and the viewer. The use of speaker wires and the title bring to mind a set of speakers used to amplify sound. However, rather than transmitting messages to an external audience, the objects are linked solely to each other, seemingly generating meaning and exchanging ideas independently. Mimicking a conversation, they suggest or model animate, self-directed behavior. In this work the artist blurs the boundaries between object and person, provoking questions about human entanglements and modes of connection or touch.
Sitting, Waiting
Sitting, Waiting. Clay, paper, aluminum chair. 2020.
