object fictions

As the James Cohan Gallery there is a great exhibit titled Object Fictions which features a number of their artists and invited artists who are making work that is done in a "realism" technique or direct pushing of it but also is simultaneously questioning what is reality and what is not.

Allan McCollum

In the press release the work is described as :

OBJECT FICTIONS assembles a diverse group of artists whose works investigate notions of perception, in its many definitions. Through a variety of media and processes, these artists explore the potential of ordinary objects, historical events, invented narratives and in some cases even other artworks, to expose reality through the lens of fiction. Through sustained looking, the works in this exhibition challenge us to consider what constitutes an object, an image, and in the broadest sense, what constitutes truth.

really incredible paintings by Helene Appel.

Though the entire exhibit is worth seeing I was extremely excited by the wood work of Alison Elizabeth Taylor (what a name.) Taylor uses trompe l'oeil techniques to carefully and beautifully recreate little moments in the disintegrating foreclosed homes found in her home state of Nevada.


She uses beautiful and expensive woods to recreate elements of walls crumbling in, slashes and holes of damage, destruction and neglect. I love the work in the exhibit which is a vignette of a wooden floor.



But since I am working on my solo show and was planning on eventually doing a series of embroideries of cracks and flaws in the walls of our Brooklyn apartment I am also VERY drawn to the simple replications of holes and such too.


All of her work is impressive but the newer work from this series is definitely the most intriguing to me. It has more ambiguity which draws me in and seems less familiar then the straight forward narratives.

Umm, wow what I would do to see this one in person.

See more info on the entire show here. And a NYT review of Alison's most recent work.