Exhibition Johanna Unzueta, Thrust Projects, New York, 2007
"Awnings", felt and sewing material, dimensions variable.
"Industrial Sculptures", felt and sewing material, dimensions variable.
Installation view (Factory, Light Gray Water Tower and Buterfly Net)
Excerpt from press release:
Thrust Projects is pleased to present a solo exhibition of the work of Johanna Unzueta . Unzueta is an artist who utilizes felt as a sculptural material. This is her first exhibition at Thrust Projects, consisting of three series: site-specific awnings, butterfly nets, and Industrial Sculptures.
The careful handiwork of Johanna Unzueta's felt "industrial sculptures" of factories, mills, cooling towers, and houses remind the viewer of the 'work of hands' that underlies any grand modern accomplishment. The games of scale affected by the play between her site-specific awnings and miniature buildings make the imposing and impersonal intimate and accessible. In conjuring up thehuman history of labor, her nostalgic sculptures of abandoned Industrial Revolution-era buildings give a revised retelling of the story of technological advancement in which time as a constant force that both buries and popularizes these architectural "monuments."
Unzueta's butterfly nets refer obliquely to the amusements of the upper class,
they are observations of a former era, and counterpoints to the Industrial Sculptures.
The distance between these extremes becomes formal, thematic, and poetical.
Johanna Unzueta is not immune to the abstract idea of class struggle, but rather
engages it in a human way.