The Paperweight Show (all photos by Clemens Kois for Fisher Parrish Gallery)” width=”720″ height=”484″ srcset=”https://hyperallergic-newspack.s3.amazonaws.com/uploads/2017/04/paperweight-show-group-720×484.jpg 720w, https://hyperallergic-newspack.s3.amazonaws.com/uploads/2017/04/paperweight-show-group-440×296.jpg 440w, https://hyperallergic-newspack.s3.amazonaws.com/uploads/2017/04/paperweight-show-group-1080×727.jpg 1080w, https://hyperallergic-newspack.s3.amazonaws.com/uploads/2017/04/paperweight-show-group-360×242.jpg 360w, https://hyperallergic-newspack.s3.amazonaws.com/uploads/2017/04/paperweight-show-group.jpg 1400w” sizes=”(max-width: 720px) 100vw, 720px”>Selection of works from The Paperweight Show (all photos by Clemens Kois for Fisher Parrish Gallery)
Even before the advent of our increasingly digital and progressively more paperless era, the paperweight was often held up as the paragon of dumb utility, its only purpose to hold papers down. It was already often a sculptural object, but now that there are fewer and fewer papers to weigh down, the paperweight has achieved a nearly transcendent level of redundancy. The stagnant state of paperweight practice is precisely what inspired Fisher Parrish Gallery to devote its first exhibition (in the space formerly occupied by 99¢ Plus Gallery) to these obsolete objets d’art.
The Paperweight Show features small sculptural works by more than 100 artists and designers in every imaginable medium, from ceramics and stone to wood, metal, glass, and even paper. Some are playfully self-aware — like Bruce M. Sherman‘s pair of clay figures designed to cradle balls of stone or Katherine Gray and Eric Huebsch‘s faux snow globe containing a can of beer — while others are more straight-faced and formal, like Jessica Hans‘s elegantly glazed ceramic flower. But virtually all of them have the added benefit of probably functioning perfectly well as paperweights.
Camilla Iliefski, “Imaginary Content”
Matthew Ronay, “Tomb”
Katherine Gray and Eric Huebsch, “A Study in Efficiency” (2017)
When: Opens Friday, April 14, 7–10pm (exhibition continues through June 4)
Where: Fisher Parrish Gallery (238 Wilson Avenue, Bushwick, Brooklyn)
More info here.
