(AAPNW-OH) – “Sarah Kabot; Unfolding Space” is a show opening Saturday, February 12 in the Isroff Gallery at the Akron Art Museum that “encourages the viewer to question his or her own perceptions. The meaning, significance and even location of objects are not fixed. Potentially, everything could be different,” said the Cleveland artist. Her installations of different vignettes unfold, the viewer moves through the space, playing with their human perception: Could it be this or is it that?
“In our current age of mass production and standardization, we take much of our interior surroundings for granted,” said Curator of Exhibitions Ellen Rudolph. “We rarely study the physical characteristics of a light fixture, exit sign or urinal. Yet we might take notice if one of these objects were slightly off-kilter or non-standard, and that’s exactly the purpose of Sarah’s re-creations – to make the viewer notice.”
According to the artist on how she creates an “intervention” where the viewer’s understanding is changed, with the use of foam core, she creates replicas of the lights, floorboards and wall surfaces in the Isroff Gallery, and then will reshape the space by adding paper replicas of chosen objects to be overlooked. “Through re-creation, I draw the viewer’s attention to the size and contour of the object and to details like buttons and screws. The things I create become almost like mimics of the manufactured object: exaggerations or simplifications occur inadvertently, and they create a provocative relationship between the original and the reproduction,” said Kabot.
Kabot’s main thought process is the spatial logic. “I was inspired by M.C. Escher’s work in relation to my own. I was particularly interested in the tessellations. In those works a clear system both determines and unifies the whole, each individual unit affects its neighbor, so although there appears to be a pattern, the pattern is made of unique parts.”
More information on this show, which remains on view through June 11, can be found at: www.akronartmuseum.org, and for more biographical on Sarah, who is professor at the Cleveland Institute of Art: www.sarahkabot.com.