HONG KONG.- Pace is presenting an exhibition of new and recent work by sculptor Arlene Shechet, marking the artist's first solo exhibition in Hong Kong.
The presentation features nine sculptures, including both large- and small-scale works. The show coincides with Art Basel Hong Kong, where Pace will present two new works by Shechet.
The exhibition’s title, Moon in the Morning, reflects Shechet’s longstanding interest in unions of seemingly disparate, incongruous materials and forms. Beautiful and disorienting, a moon in the morning can be understood in the context of the visual paradoxes and contradictions Shechet explores in her sculptures.
Shechet’s methodology for creating idiosyncratic, biomorphic, boldly colored sculptures is both highly technical and entirely intuitive—she does not employ drawings or armatures as part of her process. Guided by a general impulse, the artist engages in a spirited back and forth with her works, embracing improvisation and chance as she brings a sculpture into being. Shechet’s ceramic works are marked by complex finishes, which the artist creates by layering glazes over the course of several firings.
In Moon in the Morning, Shechet animates her individual works with combinations of geometric and organic forms, cultivating a dialogue between them. Physical enactments of fragmentation and cohesion—and their attendant emotional and psychological resonances—are central to the artist’s practice and approach to exhibition making.
With Inhaled a Blue Moon (2021), one of the large sculptures in the exhibition, Shechet uses painted wood, powder coated steel, and silver gilding to produce a dynamic composition. As with other sculptures in the exhibition, Shechet uses color—in this case, vibrant blues—to relate dissimilar materials to one another. Inhaled a Blue Moon exemplifies the artist’s affinity for working with discordant, often unwieldy media that present challenges and questions.
The works in Moon in the Morning evoke a broad range of associations through their forms and titles, encouraging an open, undirected experience for viewers. Together Forever (2021) incorporates three distinct elements—made of ceramic, wood, and steel, respectively—to form a unified composition. Song and Dance (2022), another sculpture in the exhibition, features ceramic, wood, silver, and brass elements engaged in lively choreographies with each other.
Sculptures from Shechet’s Together series, which has been the subject of exhibitions at Pace’s Palo Alto and East Hampton galleries, also figure in the artist’s Hong Kong show. Deeply engaged with modes of keeping and marking time, these brilliantly colored works are named for the days of the week and months of the year during which they were created. In this body of work, texturally and chromatically rich abstractions rendered in glazed ceramic are situated atop steel structures. The ceramic sculptures feature intense, saturated colors that complement or contradict the colors of their steel bases. The relationship between the ceramic formations and the steel structures is characterized by both balance and precarity, with organic elements flowing and falling playfully around their supports.
In June, a group exhibition curated by Shechet will open at Pace’s 540 West 25th Street gallery in New York. Titled STUFF, the show will include works by artists within and beyond the gallery’s program that have been sources of inspiration for Shechet in her own practice.
