More Than What It Is

“This is This” is a show of works by three members of Red Hook’s Still House Group (Zachary Susskind, Brendan Lynch, Nick Darmstaedter), artists who have been involved in the collective’s Group Residency Program (Grayson Revoir, Alex Da Corte), and works by Darren Bader, Mark Flood, and N. Dash. Each artist looks for meanings in appropriation and different solutions to the contradictions that arise from the use of ordinary objects in art.

“We’ve shown in a 19th-century ornate, townhouse parlor on Washington Square; a Venetian gallery on the Grand Canal; and a 27-room former real estate office in South Beach,” Still House’s Isaac Brest told Interview. “These inconsistencies keep the work on its toes. It helps the artists get a better gauge on how their work translates once taken out of the confines of our Red Hook space, which, with its inescapable Civil War-era aesthetic, adds an entirely different context to each piece.”

In Brendan Lynch’s (to be titled), 2013, a group of inside-out chip bags filled with cement, there is a strange juxtaposition between the familiarity of the objects and their non-representational forms. Only a sliver of color is visible from within the silver minimalist sculptures. In Alex Da Corte’s Wax and Wane, 2013—which is reminiscent of a wave, but is made with shampoo on a mirror—there is a contradiction between the ordinariness of the materials used and the beauty of the new form. Nearby, the gallerist’s bike is innocuously laid against the wall and becomes a work by Darren Bader. 

The Still House artists were inspired by their Red Hook building. Garbage Bitch (Pink Panther Plain), 2013, by Nick Darmstaedter, is created from the material used to insulate the studio in Brooklyn. Other works, such as those by Zachary Susskind, include other elements of the building experience. A steel pole crosses through a room of the gallery: Heavy Line, 2012. Brest explains, “With selfless restraint, each artist demonstrates respect for the material’s original character, altering only enough to subtly manifest a statement.”