Through a scrim of sweat and smoke, AD Projects presents its final exhibition in the series Reliquary/SUPERDARK, Reliquary: Andy Monk.
Andy Monk’s mixed-media works of poured plaster, matchsticks, salvaged wood and found objects offer a uniquely cathartic end to AD Projects’ summer series: they are intended to be set on fire. In Monk’s wall-mounted sculptures, hundreds of consecutive matchsticks are mired in sheets of plaster, each phosphorus tip abutting the next, perpendicular to the surface. Their meticulous placement outlines domestic floorplans and meandering city routes.
Through the act of ignition, Monk explores themes of loss, transience and personal conquest. In addressing the potential energy of a single match, he predicts the viewer’s eagerness to see his unburnt works activated–in flames.
In Monk’s wall-mounted AIDS Walk NY 2011, an intricate map of the 2011 AIDS Walk in New York City, can be seen through the plexi-glass top of a locked box, intended to be unlocked and burned only once there is a cure for AIDS.
Placed nearby are City Sights and Driven by Art, two matchstick maps of Manhattan routes for tourist sites or public art, City Sghts burned and Driven by Art pristine with its clean white plaster and soft red match tips. In the corner, flickering monitors play a looped film of the ritual of igniting the domestic floorplans exhibited on the opposite wall. The seductive combustion of the matches and the white noise as the works burn on screen, in combination with the surrounding works in their varying states of perfect preservation or smoky aftermath, as a unit flirt with the potential for closure with any works that remain unburned.
After studying art as an undergraduate at Oberlin College in Ohio, Andy Monk continued his art education at the Studio Art Centers International in Florence and the University of Richmond’s program in Rome. He currently lives and works in New York.
Reliquary/SUPERDARK at 200 Ave A will be open Tuesday, July 5th until our final closing July 10th, weekdays from 7:30-9:30 pm, weekends from noon-6pm. For questions or to schedule an appointment outside of work hours, please contact info@adprojects.org.
See more photos from the exhibition
