Josephine Not, 2016
Artist Project with Hilja Keating, Proxy Gallery
Bryant’s new installation is a complex organism that includes macrame, ceramics, fresh peppers, ginger and garlic, wood, and Keating’s sound equipment playing field recordings. The macramé does NOT have any Josephine knots, hence the title of the installation. Bryant is known for her penchant for honoring things that have lost value and are easily overlooked. She taught herself to make macramé, envisioning it hanging outside the gallery, reducing Proxy to a convenient shelf to hold the “tail” of the macrame. Keading’s CD player and speaker broadcast a loop of early morning urban and nature sounds that she recorded from her window from 5-6 am. Like Bryant’s macrame, these sounds of cars, horns, and birds are both personal (because of the early morning time) and public, pointing to what we don’t know and can’t know about one another or nature. This sound, together with the perishable vegetables, add an element of time and duration to the exhibition. The white box of Proxy is activated, yet de-centered as most of the sculptural and aural elements exist outside of it. Instead of Proxy containing the work, the work contains the gallery.
Annetta Kapon, Curator of Proxy Gallery
