Cloaca, San Francisco
8 September – 27 October, 2018
The human body has one ton of air pressure exerted on it at all times. Because this force is applied in all directions, its impact is barely perceptible. It pushes down and up, creating an equilibrium that prevents human beings from collapsing. These invisible forces manifest in Matt Borruso’s recent exhibition, Hands and Feet and Their Supports, a sharp, monochromatic show that immerses the viewer in a nuanced physical environment.
Two powder-coated black steel struts are held between the gallery’s ceiling and floor. To the uninitiated, they might have always been there. A shelf bearing a lumpy, gray concrete object is attached to each. Cast from assorted flea market discards, these objects resemble oversized hybrids of hands and feet–simultaneously gruesome and alluring. Fingers are fused together to form a bridge of a foot and large thumbs protrude from heels. One could imagine these appendages teetering through the gallery on stilts, precariously navigating through their surroundings. Near the gallery threshold, they would meet Plant Stand and Pedagogical Support (2018) a gnarled concrete termite-hill adorned with miniature platforms and two large handles. The sculpture sits upon a reconstruction of the Ulmer Hocker—architect Max Bill’s (1908-1994) multi-use furniture design that can function as a stool, table or tray. Here it serves as a pedestal. Bill studied at the Bauhaus and contributed to school’s concept of unifying art, craft, and technology. This amalgamation of disciplines is echoed throughout Borruso’s show, and in particular in two prints, pressed, rubbed, and wheat-pasted directly onto the gallery wall. One combines a cover from a 1964 Domus magazine with a black slug of a rubber hand. The other mashes together an antique vase with Ozzy Osbourne's arm and torso. As in a frottage, the wall’s texture seeps through the paper, giving it goosebumps.
Despite its hard edges, Hands and Feet and Their Supports is an exhibition of human proportions and sensations. It balances classic design with cheap materials. Architectural straight lines are offset by the wobbly reality of the human form. A certain kind of embodied experience occurs in this otherwise stark space. The body becomes implicit in the installation, the gray concrete floor a shelf to rest the viewers’ presence and weight upon, the same invisible gravitational pressure forcing everything to stay put.
(text originally published on ArtPractical.com)