DAN MANDELBAUM: DAN'S SHOW

Marvin Gardens cordially invites you to take an appointment to see the first show in our new project space, Best Western, adjacent to the main gallery. Throughout the Covid-19 lockdown this spring, Dan Mandelbaum continued to work at home with what spare materials were at hand, creating soft sculptures. Stylistically, they are similar in form to his ceramic work: Aztec sculpture meets modern animation, with numerous embedded references to the CoBrA movement. In his ceramic work, the material is built first over several days, and the glazing happens at the end of the process. However, in the new soft sculptures with the predetermined pattern and coloration of the fabric itself, the “finish” or “patina” comes first, and the form is arrived at through cutting and sewing.

On view in the first room is a large group of soft sculptures that Mandelbaum installed by piling them in a corner, taking advantage of another aspect of the language of their softness, similar to how stuffed animals get piled up in a child’s room. This logic of installation also eschews more traditional methods of exhibiting in a “white cube”. Similarly, in the second room one is confronted by a large group of sizeable ceramic sculptures. The new larger scale is impressive, but one also notices that they are looking at and engaging with a crowd. Once again, this is a gesture against a clean gallery display, and perhaps an engagement with how we have been seeing and participating in groups of protagonists more recently on the streets and in the news.

To make an appointment to visit or for more information please send an email to: Hannah@marvin-gardens.org