On the shores of the Hudson River in Newburgh, NY, an historic building formerly active as the Newburgh Steam Mill (and later as the cutting room and tannery of Regal Bag), is now the site of Elijah Wheat Showroom. For Upstate Art Weekend 2022, the sculptor, designer and performance artist Ian McMahon has cast a full-scale plaster theater curtain on site, and is engineered to be destroyed for a live audience at 7PM Sunday (actual start is 7:30PM/19:30), July 24, 2022.*
The cavernous architecture of the Elijah Wheat Showroom’s 3000 sq/ft space becomes a stage for both McMahon and material, temporarily housing a 1950-pound free-standing plaster curtain of graceful drapes, pleats, and folds. The work is inseparably entwined with the space: growing from the concrete floor through a laborious casting process conducted by the artist. Directed by his hand, it will crash into dust against the poured concrete floors.
Prior to the climactic destruction, audiences have an opportunity to behold the imposing monolith: suspended out of time, balanced delicately between the frantic disarray of construction and the controlled crescendo of deconstruction, a monument to the impermanence of the corporeal. When observed from the front, the elegant flow of fabric frozen mid-billow presents a facade of stoic solidity, a silent and looming presence whose solitary mass implies immaculate materialization. Then, as audiences step 'backstage' they are invited to explore the marks of its making, the drips and cracks traversing the crusty layers of the casting process.
McMahon rigorously collaborates with his chosen material, working intimately with it to find a form that relies exclusively on its unique integrity while simultaneously exceeding collective preconceptions. Thereby, he renders an earnestly spectacular experience. It is in this duality that the work transcends its physical lifespan. As viewers contend with the neck-craning creation, they unknowingly deny its inevitable end. As the 44-foot-long and 17 1/2 foot-high sculpture proudly flaunts its fragility, it yields a disorienting liminality. The work contains its impending collapse yet also will stand, confronting an audience with its massiveness. This tension is made manifest by the precarious pendulum poised before the curtain in the tressed ceiling. The pole is primed with potential energy paralleling the breathless anticipation of the onlookers. At one swoop, it shatters in an instant of contact between these two actors: the skillful plaster curtain ceases to be, and in its place, collective shards can be carried away, echoing the memory of this Momentary Event.
*Tickets and Release of Liability Waiver required.
Playing with the performative components of architectonic construction, Ian McMahon creates monumental action-based works that imbed themselves in place. Scale and physicality are suspended between art and architecture; inviting experiential memory and material discovery to evoke a haptic response. Although driven by a material obsession, he challenges the assumptions of preservation by presenting an experience as object. Both the construction and deconstruction of a work reveal the extreme physical limits of maker and material.
McMahon lives and works in Newburgh, NY. He is the recipient of a Jacob K. Javits Fellowship, NYFA Artist Fellowship, and Virginia Groot Fellowship. He received his MFA from Virginia Commonwealth University and BFA from Alfred University. Exhibitions include: Crane Arts, Philadelphia, PA; Pierogi: Boiler Room Brooklyn; Bemis Center for Contemporary Arts Omaha, NE; Suyama Space, Seattle WA; DeCordova Museum Lincoln, MA.; and Tang Contemporary, Beijing, China
Elijah Wheat Showroom (est. 2015) is a New York-based artist-run gallery and nomadic curatorial experience founded by Carolina Wheat & Liz Nielsen. Currently positioned in Newburgh, NY on the Hudson River in a 3000 sq/ft Kunsthalle. The gallery is named after their late son, Elijah, whose creative insight, righteous vision, perceptive being and stylistic voice for trendsetting embody the spirit that the Showroom honors. EWS artists are socially conscientious, politically engaged and reflective of a creative community striving to cultivate interactions and instigate conversations. We promote the diversity of artists' voices with contemplative messages while advocating for visual art’s accessibility to all audiences.
