Space in the Vernacular

Curated by Lia Alexopoulos, Space in the Vernacular connected the work of Judy Strahota, Drea Howenstein, and Noah Loesberg on the base of their usage of everyday objects in large scale installations. The exhibition intended to show how the usage of everyday items such as two-by-fours, bowling balls and towel dispensers can lead to a transformation of a gallery from a ordered formal space to a personal space capable of evoking intimate experiences. Drea Howenstein’s piece was a site-specific installation that deconstructed a gallery wall and balcony space. The installation consisted of vats of black substance that gradually migrated upwards from different directions. The installation investigated the interrelationship of the elements within a space to create a situation that facilitated the possibility of participation. Judy Strahota’s Building Mine challenged notions of traditional women’s roles, while exploring domestic history and the restructuring of its mythologies. Her sculpture consisted of an enormous skeleton of a wedding dress formed out of two-by-fours wood blocks. Noah Loesberg’s piece Candle Holder explored the ambivalent relationship between the individual and technology. Loesberg’s piece consisted of a candle full of tiny steel balls. As the candle burned, its heat and the heat of the lamp bent over the installation caused the steel balls to fall to the ground, leaving hundreds of metal balls scattered in a twelve-foot circle around the candle. Loseberg’s second piece Bowling Ball Machine, called upon the audience to tug on a pulley cord that set off a chain reaction of moving bowling balls that mimicked the sound bowling balls make when arriving off the conveyor at a bowling alley.