June 22

Art

Tuesday’s Studio Obstacles (Bronze x 3), 2019. Bronze. 6”x8”x3” is on display as part of “Shifting” at Neighbors Gallery’s “ lasts or for a while” now through June 26.

Neighbors Art Show

By Ar thur W hit m an

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sculptor with roots in an “expanded” approach to painting, the British-born and raised local artist Sophia Starling works in the tradition of sixties post-minimalism. Combining irregular and organic forms with the reductive geometry, serial repetition, and often—though not always—the achromatic leanings of high Minimalism, Starling creates pieces meant to engage the viewer in a patient exploration of their perceptual capacities. Using unexpected combinations of materials and working, typically, close to the floor, Starling creates pieces that are metaphorically evocative while avoiding any kind of direct figuration or narrative.

An exhibition of Starling’s work, “Shifting,” is on-view this month at Neighbors (through June 26). It will be the final visual art show at the alternative gallery for the near future.

For those not in the know, Neighbors is the brainchild of Mara Baldwin, outgoing director at Ithaca College’s Handwerker Gallery, and her partner, Sarah Hennies, an experimental composer and musician.

Currently run out of the garage of their West Hill home the space has been, for the past half-decade, an important venue for visual art and music outside the local mainstream.

Outside the mainstream of the independent local galleries—but very much within the mainstream of “contemporary” art as represented at Cornell and Ithaca

College. Like many of the exhibiting artists at Neighbors, Starling (’19) is a Cornell MFA graduate and brings with her sensibilities that are congruent with—if not slavishly aligned to—those of the department, where Baldwin has also taught.

Variously combining bronze, porcelain, and rubber, Starling creates rounded, wrinkled forms that resemble seeds, pods, capsules, or pillows. These she scatters or stacks atop—usually capsule shaped— black rubber floor mats. Recumbent, body-like things, placed more-or-less directly on the floor (here the rough, stained floor of a converted garage) reorient human perception away from our accustomed upright position.

In “Tuesday’s Studio Obstacles (Bronze x3),” three near-identical cast bronze pillows sit at the front of four tongue-like mats, which curl up the bottom edge of the gallery wall (all-white, naturally). The mats, slightly separated, have been staggered so as to create a diagonal emphasis.

Every other sculptural piece here is in white porcelain, with black and sometimes white rubber. “Stack (White),” features three glossy white pillows, forming a tentative column. These appear solid and identical from the front but if one peers around in back, one can see their hollow forms, with the top member more squashed than the others.

“Friday’s Studio Obstacle (Tucked/ Black)” rests on an irregular, vaguely icecream-cone-like mat, which again curls

up onto the wall. Two porcelain pods, one capped in translucent white rubber, the other in glossy black, face off at a distance.

Scattered elsewhere around the gallery are three solitary pods offering variations on these themes.

In her oeuvre, Starling makes a point of “shifting” between two and three dimensions, between the wall and the floor. Here she is showing five framed relief prints, older pieces that complement her recent sculptural investigations of form, texture, and material.

“Shift/Slip (Graphite),” “Shifting/Lapping (Graphite),” and “Shift/Stacking” all feature capsule shapes silhouetted against blank (if not necessarily pristine) white paper. All are richly toned and textured—you can feel the weight and scale of her forms.

“Double Shift (Aluminum)” and “Triple Shift (Aluminum/Pink)” bring in metallic embossment and—surprise! —color.

(The latter also uses warm gray rather than white paper.)

This critic has never been a true believer in the visual aesthetics proffered by Neighbors or by the Cornell MFA culture.

At the same time, it’s hard not to applaud work that stands legitimately outside Ithaca’s downtown gallery mainstream while transcending the hipster sensibility to offer something both genuinely strange and genuinely relevant.

Sculpture has been, at least in recent years, a fairly reliable vehicle for such a quality. The work of Grace Sachi Troxell (MFA ’21), who showed at Neighbors last year, or the recently graduating Tina Lam (’22) both come to mind. It is encouraging to see Starling’s work made potentially accessible to a broader public here.

This will be the last exhibit at Neighbors for a while, as both of its principals will be taking teaching positions at Bard College, starting in the fall. They will be maintaining the property—and their links with the local cultural community—with the hopes of running occasional art and music events in the future. This is good news.

Complementing Starling’s show, a final (“for a little while”) concert will be offered this Thursday evening, June 23rd, starting at 8pm. Featuring electronic musician Jason Kahn, of Zurich, songwriter Alex Lukashevsky, of Toronto, and cellist and local son T.J. Borden, currently based in New York City, it promises to be a characteristically raucous and lively event.

“Shifting” Through June 26 Neighbors Gallery at 526 Elm Street Open 2-4 Sat. and Sun https://www.neighborsgallery.com/

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that Walt has taken on one last client –– after all, they’d arrived to help Walt pack up the place and move to an assisted living facility. Understandably resistant, even cantankerous, Walt resists all her efforts to hustle him into oblivion and sell the summer camp they’d nurtured for so long.

Hours pass, and when Daniel doesn’t return, the local ranger (Elizabeth Livesay) and finally Daniel’s mother (Sylvie Yntema) are called in, each with a different interpretation of the boy’s departure (and of his sexual orientation). Search parties swarm the hills, where fire has now broken out; in the cabin, fretful indecisiveness and bickering divide these adults. As well portrayed by the actors, their moral compass grows ever shakier; that’s the “great wilderness.” This play poses an intriguing but unresolved confrontation, with the final scene as unsettling as Daniel’s disappearance.

• “School Girls,” by Jocelyn Bioh, directed by Lydia Fort. At the Hangar Theatre, Ithaca.

Through June 25. Tickets at https://hangartheatre.org/buy-tickets/ or 607-2732787.

• “A Great Wilderness,” by Samuel D. Hunter, directed by Rachel Hockett. Homecoming Players at the Cherry Artspace, 102 Cherry St., Ithaca. Through June 26. Tickets at https://homecomingplayers.org/.

Barbara Adams, a regional arts journalist, teaches writing at Ithaca College.

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practices in the arts and education. She understands the necessity of engaging with faculty, staff, students, alumni, and other stakeholders, and will work collaboratively to design and implement a strategic plan that will ensure the school’s long-term success and impact,” Provost Melanie Stein said.

Notably earlier this year what was previously the School of Music and the Department of Theatre Arts—which had been located within the School of Humanities and Sciences—fused into the Division of Music and Division of Theatre and Dance within what is now the School of Music, Theatre, and Dance. All programs have been retained. The intention behind this change was to enhance the curriculum between the disciplines that’re being coupled together through collaboration.

JUNE 22–28, 2022

/ THE ITHACA TIMES

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