LINDSEY STOUFFER SKIN
bruno david gallery
LINDSEY STOUFFER: SKIN April 20 - May 19, 2007 Bruno David Gallery 3721 Washington Boulevard Saint Louis, 63108 Missouri, U.S.A. info@brunodavidgallery.com www.brunodavidgallery.com Director: Bruno L. David This catalogue was published in conjunction with the exhibition Lindsey Stouffer: Skin at Bruno David Gallery Editor: Bruno L. David Catalog Designer: Yoko Kiyoi Design Assistants: Claudia R. David Printed in USA All works courtesy of Bruno David Gallery and Lindsey Stouffer Cover Image: Lindsey Stouffer. Squirm, 2007. 6.5 x 8 x 7 inches (16.51 x 20.32 x 17.78 cm) Steel, hosiery, plaster and wax. Copyright Š 2007 Bruno David Gallery, Inc. All Rights Reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced or transmitted in any form without the written permission of Bruno David Gallery, Inc.
Contents
Essay by Charles Schwall Afterword by Bruno L. David Checklist of the Exhibition Biography
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Tenuous Occupancy: The Sculpture of Lindsey Stouffer Essay by Charles Schwall 2
Lindsey Stouffer’s exhibition SKIN at the Bruno David Gallery presents issues inherent to both art and architecture through a provocative installation of free standing sculptures. Upon entering the gallery, the viewer is confronted with distinctive steel sculptures made of boxlike structures with organic forms inside. This combination is located atop steel poles mounted into the floor. The boxes invoke architectural spaces that seem to be inhabited by the organic forms, which are made of plaster and fabric. The dominant sculptural element is placed approximately at the eye level heightening the psychological impact of the works through confrontation. The rigid steel frames possess architectonic qualities such as openings that function like doorways, portals, or windows. Precariously situated inside, the organic forms act as inhabitants. These organic volumes fill the boxes in tenuous ways, struggling to find their place and pushing against the architectural context. Either squeezed into, or bursting out, the organic element strives to accommodate itself within the inflexible steel structure. Stouffer’s creative approach is one that values process. She describes her attitude of research as following material and conceptual processes, and then letting results and solutions emerge. In Squirm, two box structures are mounted closely together to form vertical walls that compress the organic resident, which reacts by bursting out the front and the sides. In another work entitled Bound, the organic habitant is oriented vertically through the top and the bottom as if traversing the ceiling above and the floor below. Blow is comprised of a large round oval that, as the title suggests, balloons itself through a U shaped steel structure. The sensitivity of this piece is exquisite, as the organic volume protrudes itself through the center of the steel, invoking human anatomy. Seemingly, despite these efforts, the action of the architectonic cubes is to continually expel each tenuous occupant. The works remains in a state of playfulness and the sculptures feel “arrived at” rather than preconceived. The organic forms are constructed with stretched hosiery covered in plaster and wax, and have a matte-white skin that Stouffer refers to as a “tensile membrane.” Skin, the largest organ of the human body, is an adaptable membrane that protects, shields, and contains the skeleton and vital organs. The artist explores the adaptability of skin by creating works inside rigid architectural contexts. Skin is the internal element of these sculptures, and becomes vulnerable rather than protective. Stouffer’s “tensile membranes” morph, pull, and push against the metal structures, resulting in tension and nonconformity.
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This aspect of the work subverts the conventional concept of skin, in that there is an apparent discomfort as forms struggle to accommodate to the context of the box. Stouffer’s sculptures also explore skin as an exterior connective tissue that surrounds and defines organic form. Skin is also the most varied, constantly active source of feeling and sensation in the body, filled with nerve endings, blood, and lymph vessels. No tissue in the body is more adaptable than the skin; it has a multitude of pliable and elastic qualities and can continually change size and shape. The fact that we sense through our skin is also what makes Stouffer’s works so poignant. Her sense of materiality in the work exploits these aspects of skin because our skin is lived in, connected to experience, human content, activity, and feeling. How the organic resides, or doesn’t reside, within an architectural context is the essential question that Stouffer investigates in this body of work. The term site refers to the coordinates of a location, while as Jeff Kelly points out, “places are reservoirs of human content”. Stouffer’s vision heightens our awareness that spaces are defined by the way an occupant inhabits or resides in a building or home, and that ultimately, experience shapes and defines place. Her architectonic boxes become places where the action of unyielding and conformity occurs. The reciprocal relationship between the elements of unyielding and conformity are clearly articulated in this work, as the organic struggles to adapt itself to the steel frameworks, and conversely the frameworks seem to cause reactions in the organic. Describing this vital exchange of energy, Stouffer remarked, “The thing is changed by the thing inside of it.” Stouffer’s work reveals that the nature of place is often ungraspable, and deeply connected to the subjective. Place is not an object that can simply be reduced to signs, codes, and coordinates, but rather, to inhabit a place means to live in it. As her forms strive to situate themselves within the architecture, we become aware that belonging in a place is experiential, as well as spatial and physical. Our sense of being is connected to place through our individual experiences of boundaries opening up, changing, growing, and the continuous contact between skin and structure. —Charles Schwall
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Charles Schwall is an artist, art educator and writer. His work was recently shown at the Contemporary Art Museum St. Louis, and at the Daum Museum of Contemporary Art. As an artist educator, Schwall has studied the educational system in the municipality of Reggio-Emilia, Italy, and co-edited and co-authored the book, In the Spirit of the Studio: Learning from the Atelier of Reggio Emilia. Charles lives and works in St. Louis, Missouri. This essay is one in a series of the gallery’s exhibitions written by fellow gallery artists and friends.
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Afterwords by Bruno L. David 6
I am pleased to exhibit a new series of sculptures by Lindsey Stouffer at the Bruno David Gallery. Support for the creation of significant new works of art has been the core to the mission and program of the Bruno David Gallery since its founding. Lindsey Stouffer’s remarkable and compelling work makes her one the most impressive artist of the gallery. Lindsey Stouffer new sculptures combine steel structures and expanded tensile membranes (skin made from hosiery). The two elements (steel and hosiery) are put in situations where they struggle to occupy the same space. The skin is expanded into the steel or the steel clamps on to the skin. During this process, necessary adaptations take place and both elements are changed. She currently teaches in the Sam Fox School of Design and Visual Arts at Washington University in St. Louis. Her most recent public site-specific art, Hoi Polloi, was funded by Arts in Transit for the St. Louis Metrolink, and is located at the Forsyth station in Clayton (St. Louis) Missouri. She received her MFA (Sculpture) from Washington University in St. Louis. Lindsey was raised in Hawaii and is consequently deeply interested in light, land, and place; three themes, topics, and qualities that are operative in the gestation of her work.
— Bruno L. David
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Checklist of the Exhibition and Images
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Blow, 2007
Steel, hosiery, plaster and wax 6 x 7 x 5.5 inches (15.24 x17.78 x 13.97 cm) 10
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Blow, 2007
Steel, hosiery, plaster and wax 6 x 7 x 5.5 inches (15.24 x17.78 x 13.97 cm) 12
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Bust, 2007
Steel, hosiery, plaster and wax 12 x 7 x 8 inches (30.48 x 17.78 x 20.32 cm) 14
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Bust, 2007
Steel, hosiery, plaster and wax 12 x 7 x 8 inches (30.48 x 17.78 x 20.32 cm) 16
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Bound, 2007
Steel, hosiery, plaster and wax 11 x 7.5 x 8.5 inches (27.94 x 19.05 x 21.59 cm) 18
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Squirm, 2007
Steel, hosiery, plaster and wax 6.5 x 8 x 7 inches (16.51 x 20.32 x 17.78 cm) 20
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Squirm, 2007
Steel, hosiery, plaster and wax 6.5 x 8 x 7 inches (16.51 x 20.32 x 17.78 cm) 22
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Breath, 2007
Steel, hosiery, plaster and wax 12 x 11 x 11 inches (30.48 x 27.94 x 27.94 cm) 24
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Breath, 2007
Steel, hosiery, plaster and wax 12 x 11 x 11 inches (30.48 x 27.94 x 27.94 cm) 26
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Breath, 2007
Steel, hosiery, plaster and wax 12 x 11 x 11 inches (30.48 x 27.94 x 27.94 cm) 28
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Gasp, 2008 Mixed Media 99 x 6 x 3.5 inches (251.46 x 15.24 x 8.89 cm) 30
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Gasp (detail), 2008 Mixed Media 99 x 6 x 3.5 inches (251.46 x 15.24 x 8.89 cm) 32
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LINDSEY STOUFFER Lives and works in St. Louis, Missouri
EDUCATION M.F.A. B.F.A.
1992, Sculpture, Washington University in St. Louis, Sam Fox School of Design & Visual Arts, St. Louis, Missouri 1989, Denver University of Art
PUBLIC ART 2006 2005 2004 2002
Hoi Polloi; Cross County Metrolink Extension [CCMLE] Public Art Project, Forsyth Station, St. Louis,Missouri. Pavilion, Laclede Power Plant, Riverfront North, St. Louis, Missouri. THE Magic Garden, St. Louis Economic Council, Wellston Daycare Center, Wellston, Missouri. THE Magic Garden, St. Louis Economic Council, Wellston Daycare Center, Wellston, Missouri. Haptic Portal, Regional Arts Commission of St. Louis, St. Louis, Missouri. Freedom Crossing, Memorial; Mary Meachum, Riverfront North, St. Louis, Missouri.
SELECTED SOLO EXHIBITIONS 2007 2001
Bruno David Gallery, SKIN, St. Louis, MO. April Bonsack Gallery, Old Ghosts, St. Louis, Missouri.
SELECTED GROUP EXHIBITIONS 2007 2006
OVERVIEW_07, Bruno David Gallery, St. Louis, MO eARThworks: art for an endangered planet, The Regional Arts Commission of St. Louis, curated by David Lobbig, St. Louis, Missouri. Under Construction, The Regional Arts Commission of St. Louis, curated by Emily Blumenfeld, St. Louis, Missouri.
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2004 2004 2002 2001 2001 2000 1997 1995 1994 1994 1994 1993 1989
The 20th Anniversary Exhibition, Elliot Smith Contemporary Art, curated by Bruno David, St. Louis, Missouri. Women Only, Elliot Smith Contemporary Art, curated by Bruno David, St. Louis, Missouri. Honor Awards 2002, Art St. Louis, St. Louis Missouri. Not Your Usual Self Portrait, Art St. Louis, St. Louis, Missouri, Curated by Belinda Lee & Ed Boccia. MOAK4, Four State Regional Exhibition, Springfield Art Museum, Springfield, Missouri. Group Exhibition, Steinberg Gallery, Washington University Gallery of Art; St. Louis, Missouri. Curated by Sabine Eckman. Young Architects, St. Louis Design Center; St. Louis, Missouri. Invitational Exhibition, The Edge Gallery, Denver, Colorado. Curated by Mark Brasuell. Marvelous Masks, , COCA, St. Louis, Missouri. Sculpture Exhibition, Harry D. Hendren Gallery, with Dan Lowenstein, Keith Seybert, and Denise Ward-Brown, Lindenwood College, St. Charles, Missouri. Peter Hoel and Lindsey Stouffer, Meramec Gallery, St. Louis Community College, MO Heroes, Heroines, and Hollywood, COCA, Curated by Carol Carter and Polly Saputo. Fish on Pillars & Ivory Towers; The Edge Gallery, with Russell Bay, Denver, Colorado, Curated by Ken Peterson.
BIBLIOGRAPHY Schwall, Charles Lancaster, David Friswold, Paul Durchholz, Daniel Bonetti, David Hollerback, Bryan ______________ Ezell, Ruth Bonetti, David Cooper, Ivy ____________ Nauheim, Jerry Hertenstein, Barbara Nicholson, Ann
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“Tenuous Occupancy: The Sculpture of Lindsey Stouffer,” Catalogue Essay, Bruno David Gallery Publications, St. Louis, MO. May 2007 “Art on the Go,” Where, May 2007, p. 11 “Skin Is In,” The Riverfront Times, April 24, 2007. “Off the Rails,” St. Louis Magazine, pp.41-42, November 2006. “Public Art Review,” The St. Louis Post Dispatch, October 1, 2006. “Off the Rails,” St. Louis Magazine, p. 41, November 2006. “2004 Year in Review”, published by the Public Art Network and Americans for the Arts. “Metrolink Art,” Living St. Louis, KETC Channel 9, September 2006, St. Louis, MO http://www.ketc.org/productions/productions_livingSTL_videoArchive.asp#recent “Three Galleries along McPherson offer vitality and variety,” The St. Louis Post Dispatch, May 9, 2004. “Current Exhibitions,” The Riverfront Times, Vol. 28, No 17, April 28-May 4, 2004. “Program Notes”, ACSA Newsletter, April 2000. “Metro Watch,” St. Louis Post Dispatch, November 23, 1999. “Sittin’ Pretty,” St. Louis Post Dispatch, February 15, 1997. “Furniture Designers Send Unique Messages in Chairs,” The Record, Washington University in St. Louis, December 12, 1996.
Jauhar, Sandeep Aronson, Debby Clegg, Nancy Heath, Jennifer Clegg, Nancy
“Pedal Pushers,” St. Louis Post Dispatch, December 12, 1996. “Students and Community Groups Collaborate on Bicycles of the Future,” The Record, Washington University in St. Louis, October 26, 1995. “Glitter Bugs,” Westword, pp 32-33, April 19-25, 1989. “Review”, Rocky Mountain News, April 1989. “No Deposit No Return,” Westword, p. 28, November 9-15, 1988.
GRANTS & AWARDS 2005 2004
PAN and AFTA recognition in Year in Review of the best public art projects, Award, Washington, D.C. Collaborative research grant, VADC, St. Louis, Missouri.
VISITING LECTURES AND WORKSHOPS 2006 2005 2004 2002 2001 2001 1989
Juror, Chain of Rocks Banner Project for Trailnet, St. Louis, Missouri. Panelist, Public Art Nuts and Bolts symposium. Guest lecturer, Site Sight; California State University, Sacramento, California. Guest lecturer, Imagine Art Here public art workshop, St. Louis, Missouri. Visiting Artist, John Burroughs School, St. Louis, Missouri. Guest Artist Lecture Series, Webster University, St. Louis, Missouri. Guest lecturer, 4th Annual College Art Symposium, Denver Art Museum, Denver, Colorado.
FACULTY POSITIONS 2006 1993-2004 1995-2000
Visiting Assistant Professor, Washington University, Sam Fox School of Design and Visual Arts, College of Art, St. Louis, Missouri. Visiting Assistant Professor; Washington University School of Architecture, St. Louis, Missouri. Co-founder of Vern Creative, St. Louis, Missouri.
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ARTISTS Margaret Adams Dickson Beall Laura Beard Elaine Blatt Martin Brief Lisa K. Blatt Shawn Burkard Bunny Burson Carmon Colangelo Alex Couwenberg Jill Downen Yvette Drury Dubinsky Corey Escoto
Beverly Fishman Damon Freed William Griffin Joan Hall Takashi Horisaki Kim Humphries Kelley Johnson Howard Jones (Estate) Chris Kahler Bill Kohn (Estate) Leslie Laskey Sandra Marchewa Peter Marcus
Patricia Olynyk Robert Pettus Daniel Raedeke Chris Rubin de la Borbolla Frank Schwaiger Charles Schwall Christina Shmigel Thomas Sleet Buzz Spector Lindsey Stouffer Cindy Tower Mario Trejo Ken Worley
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