Polly ApfelbaumGood and Plenty
Exhibition
Introduction
Sabine Folie, Vienna
Sabine Folie, Vienna
Grünangergasse 1
1010 Vienna
14 Mar – 16 Apr 2005
read inGerman
Since the mid-nineties, Apfelbaum's work has been widely discussed within the context of abstract painting. She uses such sensuous material as velvet, cotton, and fabric dye, and crepe paper. By draping textiles languorously from pins or arranging them in lavish piles on the floor, she gives rise to works at once fragile, ingenious, and graceful. In recent years, Polly Apfelbaum’s large-format floor works have become her trademark: hundreds of small, hand-cut pieces of crushed stretch velvet treated with fabric dye are painstakingly arranged in waves of color on the floor. Their circular or elliptical patterns produce a vertiginous effect. “I wanted the work to be (…) as sexy and hallucinogenic as possible,” says Polly Apfelbaum. Apfelbaum's work invites a multitude of interpretations that range from high to popular culture, revealing allusions to color field painting, minimalist sculpture, Matisse's paper cutouts, Andy Warhol, feminist art, and art and crafts. The titles of her works often refer to pop songs; the artist is interested in the emotional, intuitively and at the same time tightly structured content of music. In the midst of her exuberant eclecticism and the manifold references evident in her work, structure and austere form are clearly dominant as well; her sculptures are ingeniously balanced. Her tie to folk art is primarily a formal one; she derives from it a degree of economy, rhythm, and logic. Polly Apfelbaum is searching for beauty; her works are visually appealing. With this exhibition the Galerie will be showing two new large-format floor works, black&white-Polaroids, and as a historical reference sculptures and wall works from the nineties.
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