transcendent mess type designed by Mountain Pollen
Transcendent Mess: to outwit representation was a group show curated by Lane Timothy Speidel at Vox Populi Gallery of 5 artists that frames material exploration and abstraction as trans methodologies.
Print-to-order copies of the exhibition catalog are now available.
The catalog documents the show in 80 pages, with essays by the curator and interviews with the artists, as well as color images of the work, finished and in progress.
The catalog documents the show in 80 pages, with essays by the curator and interviews with the artists, as well as color images of the work, finished and in progress.
An essay by the curator, from the catalog, “Stop Making Sense!” was published on artblog in Winter, 2024. Below is some text written by the curator about the show along with selected images.
The programming surrounding the show included a discussion with the curator and all the artists moderated by David Getsy at the Penn LGBT Center. It was organized by FQT associate director Che Gossett in collaboration with Penn TOHP, with support from the Sachs Program for Arts Innovation and sponsorship by the Penn LGBT Center.
Kim Altomare, Mary Henjes, Mountain Pollen, Chenxi Shao, and Molly Thayer are all artists working in different mediums and methods. Each artist uses multiple overlapping investigative processes; metalwork, papermaking, ceramics, weaving, and typography, among others. Dodging representation in the interest of something greater, stranger, more volatile, and perverse. With tactical and flamboyant improvisation these artists court failure in search of that which is beyond definition, each work accumulating in an explicit point upon an infinite spiral of human experience.
The works hold the contradiction of living in a transexual body. Materials are worked both with and against their inherent natures, metal is made to curve softly and paper is made rigid, fiberglass nurtures and fire is cold, letters twist away from reading, and litter stands proudly.
All of these seemingly additive processes are undoing everything that is be- tween the artists’ hands and the present moment. By bringing these works, made separately, into spatial conversation with one another we can explore the humor and honesty of 5 different individuals attempting to distinguish moments in time.
Transcendent Mess is invested in illegibility as a means of clarity. To make clear, through a considered yet raucous struggle of material and form, the precise moment of looking, of living, of the appetite and satiety of both.
installation images of Transcendent Mess taken by Alexei Mansour
titles and details of works and gallery map