LONDON.- David Gill Gallery announced the representation of Chris Schanck. The Detroit-based artist will debut a solo show in London in 2023.

It’s no surprise that Chris Schanck’s work plays in the liminal space between art and design. He first studied fine art at the School of Visual Arts in New York, and then pursued Design at Cranbrook. The fantastical pieces he now produces – from a shelving suite (Banglatown) that seems all but blown away by the wind to a resin-topped table (Gold 900) held up by a beleaguered crouching man – can be judged on their narrative, or their function. Or indeed, on an intriguing material complexity, since Schanck takes multiple elements of little or no value – cheap plywood, scavenged sticks – and both disguises and transforms them with luscious coatings of resin or aluminium foil. Every piece contains more than one story.

Currently, Schanck has his first retrospective exhibition at the Museum of Art and Design in New York. Its very title “Off-World” positions it as an alien proposition. Among the exhibits is one of his latest works: Mortal Bench. It is a nod to Memento Mori and to public seating from the Victorian era. Sitting atop the bench is an effigy of Death and the Maiden, a reminder of our shared fate.

Another, an explosive chandelier, represents the collision of two worlds –Schanck’s and his mother’s – who occupy what could be considered opposing cultures within America.The chandelier was an opportunity for collaboration and a chance for Schanck to represent his deep appreciation and admiration for his mother. For the chandelier, his mother sent to Detroit an expansive assemblage of twigs she’d found on the beach near her Florida home.Then, inspired by his mother’s sensibilities, Schanck re-created his own as a spikier, post-industrial object, using detritus gleaned from his yard in. Detroit plays a major part in Schanck’s story. He moved to the city from New York in 2009, and set up his studio in an area largely inhabited by immigrants from South Asia, particularly Bangladesh.They have named it Banglatown. “It was a very different time,” says Schanck. “I could drive down the opposite side of the street in the middle of the day without anyone seeming to notice or care. Now luxury boutiques have begun to line those same streets. If New York was about finding a place in a status-driven artworld, in Detroit he found an enduring belief in community, self-sufficiency and in art as an end in itself, rather than a means to accrue money and repute.

“Art and life exist as a codependent relationship inside myself, and we’ve always looked after each other.” he says. In his studio, there are now seven assistants, including two local Bengali women. This is not a charitable act. “I needed assistants and no one from art schools wanted to come to the city, so out of necessity I hired my neighbours – and they have been some of the best people I have ever worked with.”

Being in Detroit has enabled Schanck to create a very particular practice that celebrates both making and personal and intellectual pathfinding.“I want to create meaningful work, by that I mean to unlock some kind of essence to understand what I’m made of, and to figure out my relative place in the world.”

His current exploration is into the figure of the scarecrow – “an object created by one group of animals to scare off another”. While a priority of the studio is to work on objects that people will use, and to be sustainable in its operation (commissions from luxury houses including Dior, Bottega Veneta and Tom Ford have all helped with that), for Schanck new territory needs continually to be broached. Again gleaned from his neighbourhood, scarecrows are a familiar presence in the local backyard gardens – “from a stick with a bodega bag, to a near- human figure dressed in last year’s worn-out clothes” – where they keep the crows away while simultaneously evoking a Christ-like presence. It’s no surprise that Schanck is drawn to this semantic duality.

As a new series of scarecrows emerges, perhaps some will appear in Schanck’s first show at David Gill, along with works that elaborate his story so far. In Schanck’s words:“An exploration into work that operates on two levels, the everyday and the unknown.”