Jessica Stockholder, Angled Tangle, 2014: Art Basel Miami Beach 2014

Kavi Gupta proudly presentedAngled Tangle, Jessica Stockholder’s site-responsive sculpture at Art Basel Miami Beach Public 2014. Installed on the grounds of the BassMuseum, the arrangement continued a lineage of recent large-scale public works such as Once Upon a Time, EXPO Chicago (2014),Cross Hatch (2013),Color Jam(2012) and Peer Out to See, Palacio de Cristal, Reina Sofia Museum, Madrid (2010). Angled Tangle combines various materials referencing the design of public and private spaces. The work balances graphic description with material eventfulness, andconsists of five triangles each described by a different material yellow bollards, bluebollards, a cut in the ground, diamond plate steel, and an elaborate ‘lamp shade’ ona lamp post. The lamp post holds a collection of mismatched light fixtures rangingfrom security floodlights to domestic fixtures. The triangle is compelling because itproposes a sense of autonomy while at the same time jostling with and against the rectilinear design of the lawn and walkways that contain the work. The possible angles, dynamism, and complexity of this intersection are infinite. Angled Tangle incorporates and is framed by the grass of the museum lawn and engages the space for which it was conceived. The work embeds a formal and abstract structure inside an orchestration of a visceral and immediate phenomenal experience. Stockholder’s consistent investigation into our experience with color and place spans three decades and includes drawings, small scale sculptures, and site specific installations. These vibrant works consistently carry a kind of picture making into multiple planes, allowing the viewer the unique opportunity to experience painting and sculpture simultaneously. The drawings explore different ways to intersect the landscape giving physical form to a graphic play of triangle shapes. The first ideas are ungainly and knit too completely into the landscape to be appropriate for an art fair. The final drawings describe a work that is resonant with the Miami site but is also a coherent work poised to grapple with varied contexts.