David Corbett’s solo exhibition marks his third showing at 65Grand. Titled “Change Makes It New,” the collection includes paintings and sculptures. Each medium appears intricately connected to the others. The paintings contain thick, geometric figures, sharply constructed of opposing brushstrokes on a light, hazy ground. The brilliantly colored figures are always at the fore, yet it’s the tension between the articulate and the inarticulate that animates the paintings. This tension between the architectural elements and their amorphous grounds finds a fuller expression in Corbett’s two sculptures. For instance, “There is No Way, There is a Way” is a hollow maquette made of slender sticks submerged beneath layers of paint. This eludes easy comprehension. Initially, the paint conceals the structure of the random star-like cluster except when viewed from the side, thereby revealing colorful regular stripes. A device to submerge order within chaos, it also privileges a viewpoint that just happens to be very near the floor. More effective still, and without the stripe gimmick, is the other sculpture, “Star.” A similar cluster of pencil-sized dowels and micro-lumber, “Star” gets its haze from its structural tangle and secondarily from its lacquered paint and gold-leafed sheen. The tangle also does something that the paintings cannot do. Because it is porous, the view of the inside shifts as one walks around it as the shiny lacquer glints in the gallery lights. In this instance Corbett’s sculptures do what the paintings can only hint at. (Dan Gunn)
Through November 14 at 65Grand, 1378 W. Grand Ave.
Rhyme, Rhythm and Meter: A Review of Mie Kongo at 65Grand There is a poetic sensibility in these works, in the way that pre-existing components are pooled together to form relationships with one another—some of symmetry and others of dissonance.
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