If you came to our Issue 15 release party at SIGNAL gallery in Bushwick, you may have wondered what the deal was with the tall white curtains making a maze of that big room. Early in the evening, we may have told you that they were an installation by the artist Anna K. Miller—700 yards of cheesecloth dipped in water and glue, sculpted into surprisingly rigid folds, and strung up to span the width of the space—and that this was Anna’s first solo exhibition.
Later in the evening, though, it was a little too loud to hear, and we left a lot of people wondering what exactly those curtains were. Unfortunately, large pieces of Anna’s installation were damaged, stained by stray cups of wine, and trampled by dirty shoes.
Luckily for us, Anna has reconstructed the piece—and we hope you’ll visit the extended run of FOLDS, through Sunday, December 16th. In case you forgot the SIGNAL address, it’s at 260 Johnson Avenue, a few blocks from the Montrose L stop. More information about the show from SIGNAL below.
We encourage everyone to go see FOLDS as it was meant to be seen. It’s a beautiful show, and Anna is an artist worth supporting. SIGNAL will be holding a closing reception on Sunday December 16, from 5 to 8 PM. We hope to see you there.
—The Editors
From SIGNAL:
SIGNAL is pleased to present FOLDS, the first solo exhibition by Brooklyn-based artist Anna K. Miller.
FOLDS is a gallery-spanning large-scale installation: 700 yards of cheesecloth have been draped from the structural beams in the ceiling, forming ghostly, semi-opaque curtains that section off the gallery floor. Frozen into shape with a mixture of glue and water, the draped cloth preserves the handwrung irregularities of the process in rippling folds. Viewers are invited along the path of the curtains, to become immersed within the installation, and to consider the latent forms made visible within the space and material.
Working through a limited palette of common materials, plywood, beeswax, honey, canvas, and cheesecloth, Miller’s practice has long focused on repetitive processes, the gradual accumulation of effects in a given material. Previous works have used the same combination of cheesecloth and glue to preserve objects in relief; this installation represents an expansion of the theme, continuing what Miller describes as “a conversation with material.” A quality intrinsic to the material is realized through experimentation, something unanticipated arises—then is isolated, repeated, and accumulated.
Anna K Miller attended Princeton University and received an MFA from Hunter College. Originally from Los Alamos, New Mexico, she lives and works in Brooklyn, New York.
