Wallspace is pleased to present three works by New York-based artist Joe Scanlan in an exhibition that takes the form of a “round robin.” A small arena has been carved out of the larger main gallery in which a single work will be shown for a brief period of time, before another work takes its p... Read more
Wallspace is pleased to present three works by New York-based artist Joe Scanlan in an exhibition that takes the form of a “round robin.” A small arena has been carved out of the larger main gallery in which a single work will be shown for a brief period of time, before another work takes its place. Part audition, part slide show, and part lot sale, the works will proceed as the artist and gallery see fit.
The work foregrounded this week is “The Massachusetts Wedding Bed,” a queen- sized bed made entirely by hand in Wellfleet, Massachusetts, the first state in the United States to legalize same-sex marriage. The bed is just like any other well-made bed that is large enough for two people to sleep in. It is a nice, sturdy, admirable bed, capable of providing a lifetime of rest and intimacy for a man and a woman or a woman and a woman or a man and a man.
The Massachusetts Wedding Bed is made of local materials. The headboard and footboard are matched-grain pine boards splined together and then mortise- and-tenoned into two-inch pine posts. The bed rails are matched-grain pine boards doweled together to form a rabbet profile. Removable cherry wood braces are laid flush in dado joints that have been cut into the rabbet. These braces span the width of the bed, are of varying strength, and are adjustable. Finally, solid cherry blocks are inlaid in the posts, and slotted metal hardware are doweled into the rails, in order to make their union stronger, cleaner and more attractive. There is no finish on the bed. The bed will remain unfinished until it is purchased and taken home. At that time, a clear varnish or low-lustre oil finish is recommended. The bed can also be treated with “milk paint,” a rich, flat, and extremely durable paint devised
by the early American Shaker community. The bed can be dismantled into basic components for easy transport in a car or up a flight of stairs. Craftsmanship as politics. Craftsmanship as intimacy. Craftsmanship as statement of values.
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All of the works chosen by the gallery to exhibit have never been seen United States. They are particularly representative of the artist’s ongoing public interrogation of issues related to craftsmanship, economics, consumption, and politics.
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Joe Scanlan was born in Circleville, Ohio, in 1961. Since his last exhibition in New York in 2001, Scanlan has mounted sixteen one-person exhibitions in galleries and museums throughout Europe, including the Van Abbemuseum, Eindhoven; K21, Düsseldorf; castillo/corrales, Paris; and Galerie Jan Mot, Brussels. Scanlan has participated in many significant international group exhibitions, including Documenta IX, Kassel; The Aperto, Venice; The Sydney Biennial; the Shanghai Biennial; and the Sharjah Biennial. He is a frequent contributor to Artforum, to his online forum, thingsthatfall.com, and to his own imprint, Commerce Books. He currently lives in New York City and is director of the Visual Arts Program in the Lewis Center for the Arts at Princeton University.
