IMMATERIAL

In Mary Fernando Conrad’s solo exhibition at icTus Gallery, such familiar and functional refuse as polystyrene packing material, plastic sheeting, and cardboard boxes are collected, investigated, assembled, and sewn into what amounts to a contemporary cabinet of curiosities. Yet while traditional Kunstkammern displayed mysterious specimens from far away lands, Conrad’s cabinet contains objects so much a part of daily life as to be deemed disposable. By recrafting and displaying them in a gallery context, she declares them worthy of reflection. Her work begs the question: What is valued, what is not, and why?

Conrad’s investigations take the forms of installations, small- and large-scale sculpture, neon signage, and drawing. Against the gallery’s back wall, four striking, amorphous assemblages, Ground Control, Common Carrier, Vapor Trail, and Airport Hotel (all work 2011), are backlit to reveal contents that seem to glow under the light. Drayage and Palette, two drawings on paper, reiterate those organic shapes and vivid colors, and Wheres, a grid of small acrylic boxes filled with wood, plaster, and string lend a sense of mystery to the disposable objects that compose them. Each of these pieces takes a slightly different formal approach, but the inquiry itself is deep and persistent, like getting to know a hilltop by hiking all of its paths.

IMMATERIAL, installation view, icTus Gallery. From left to right: Ground Control; 29 x 36 x 2 in.; Common Carrier; 33 x 56 x 4 in.; Vapor Trail; 25 x 48 x 3 in.; Airport Hotel; 24 x 30 x 2 in.; all works, 2011; sewn plastic sheeting. Courtesy of the Artist and icTus Gallery, San Francisco.

Installations at the gallery’s entrance are quieter than Conrad’s other work and almost hidden. But these pieces have secrets to reveal. In Is Light Is Mechanical, strategically placed refuse highlights the gallery’s familiar and functional components. Cardboard boxes and packing paper spew like water from a painted-out electrical pipe. A tableau of string, packaging, tape, and cardboard interacts playfully with humble architectural features such as the window, the doorframe, and an industrial light switch—yet another homage to the ignoble. Framing and highlighting such objects using discarded materials exposes the concealed elements to the light of day, simultaneously suggesting the textural beauty of the everyday and revealing the blemishes of contemporary life. Here, the question of value receives an answer: these things tell us something about how we live, and because of this, they matter.

IMMATERIAL is on view at icTus Gallery, in San Francisco, through November 18, 2011.

Melony Bravmann is a Bay Area artist and art writer. Her artwork reflects upon themes of preciousness, perfection, and balance. She received her MFA in Painting from CCA.