#downsross

JENS KOTHE ‘Model Organisms’ @downsross New York Humans, we append annotations to the haunting refrains of our inheritance. In his first U.S. solo exhibition, the Düssseldorf-based artist Jens Kothe braids together the epigenetic influence of manifold 20th-century sculptural argots. One might number in this clade Robert Gober’s bodily traces as palimpsests of memory, Heidi Bucher’s shape-shifting milky architectonic molds, the errant threat of self-dissection that emanates from the spectre of early Tishan Hsu, Alina Szapocznikow’s erogenous metastasis of the domesticated self, or the biomorphic ouroboros of Frederick Kiesler’s “endless house” — a mutated lineage extruded into the meaty heuristic of Kothe’s speculative morphobiology and immunological ergonomics. Whether clinging to the wall or freely-suspended, these objects churn codified binaries beyond expectation – visceral/epidermal, prosthetic/native, sensuous/aversive, primeval/plasticine – their sculptural logics minted from substances that would be at home at home: expanded foams, tufted velvet, a touch-up coat of eggshell acrylics, plain-woven canvas, joists of timber, the liniment-like glimmer of varnish, nails, the melodious note of soft-hewn pine. Under Kothe’s hand, they are massaged into the soft securities of a domestic milieu and the pliant, if evanescent, warped comforts of the not-quite flesh… #jenskothe #modelorganisms #downsross #newyork #bowery #sculpturw #installationart #contemporaryart (en Downs & Ross Ltd) https://www.instagram.com/p/CcAUXVoMCzs/?utm_medium=tumblr