Artists Sam Schwindt and Catie Burrill hone their craftsmanship and explore threads of vitality through materiality at Parlour and Ramp, once a funeral parlor and salon. In “Leather and Fur: Uncommitted Crimes,” tall sculptures of hard and tough leather are married to others with soft, fuzzy faux fur to illustrate the elements of life that are easily discarded, disregarded, and othered, spotlighting each artist’s ruminations on countercultures, from queer ephemeral bodies to the portrayal of madness in American society.
“Leather and Fur: Uncommitted Crimes”
Through 12/6: by appointment, [email protected], Parlour and Ramp, 2130 W. 21st Street, parlourandramp.com
Artist talk
Thu 12/5, 7-8:30 PM, Parlour and Ramp, 2130 W. 21st Street, parlourandramp.com
This exhibition marks the evolution and beyond of each artist’s creative practice. Schwindt’s meticulously manipulated leather and animal hides comment on the politicization of the queer body while Burrill’s steadfast commitment to the craft of sewing is attested in her skillfully crafted designs accentuating her own unique patterns. Schwindt’s The Figure Ravaged By The Sublime—which is commanded by hot pink leather and pierced by a bright neon light—next to Burrill’s Dead Horse—reminiscent of a U.S. flag with brightly colored faux fur in place of stars and black leather for stripes that bleed out of the frame—prelude the exhibition’s platonic matrimony of the two. Around the corner, Burrill’s installation Furgate: Embrace the Worm, two nearly 8-foot, one-eyed furry guardians, hovers over the salon and guards Schwindt’s The Figure (Pierced) Regenerating From the Fragments, which hangs from the ceiling like a carcass with a neon rod slicing through its body.
Credit: Samuel Schwindt
What I found to be the most intriguing and resounding element of the exhibition is on the gallery wall. Each artist debuts a series of small sculptures that drive home the themes they are exploring on a microlevel. Schwindt tears muscle, tissue, and appendages from the body in his sculptures in which he explores the voluntary and involuntary, the constraints and contortions our muscles endure unknowingly. Burrill’s series “Stones of Folly” spotlights mental illness through a collection of small stones—embellished with bright fur and strung like a rosary—that references the dated belief that those who were “mad” had stones in their head that needed to be surgically removed. In the center of each larger stone is a picture of a popular figure who has experienced unjust treatment because of their mental illness.
In “Leather and Fur: Uncommitted Crimes,” Schwindt and Burrill liberate the flesh and the mind from the societal confines of normality and structure. Viewers are encouraged to participate in this un-lassoing of American order by playing with salvaged scraps of faux fur and leather that the artists have gathered in a treasure chest. With German philosopher Theodor Adorno’s reflection that all art is in a potential state of making a political statement in mind, Schwindt and Burrill liberate the aspects of the human experience that are often overshadowed by the sociopolitical contexts in which they are confined.
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