Artist Isaac Pool speaks about 40 Volume, on view at Knockdown Center January 13 – February 25, 2018, with performances January 13th and February 24th.
40 Volume, Isaac Pool’s first solo exhibition in New York, is an installation and sitcom-length play starring three sock-encrusted vases and a head of fennel. In 40 Volume‘s performances, the vessels depart from their place in the adjacent gallery and chat together through filters of personal mythology and melodramatic pop lyrics to find sisterhood. The exhibition includes paintings and sculptures: each character from the play holds a space marked by surfaces of dollar store glitz and janky, poetic objects. The paintings are assemblages of sculptural elements, a mass of accumulated and arranged material that is anchored to the wall; whereas the sculptures, with their humorous constructions, are suggestions for pertinent lifestyle choices. As a study in aspirational whiteness and its discontents, 40 Volume matches its protagonists’ delusions with a tenderness as charming as it is suspect.
40 Volume’s play is performed by Alisa Besher, Zachary Delamater, Scears Lee, Martha Moszczynski, Alejandra Venancio, and Isaac Pool. A version of 40 Volume was originally published in Volume 3 of Haunt Journal (2016). Isaac Pool: 40 Volume was organized by Samuel Draxler.
Videography by Mehmet Salih Yildirim