‘Please Sit for an Alternate Ending’ Explores Futile Materials

Objective Gallery is gearing up to present the first duo exhibition of designers Jeff Martin and Sam Klemick: Please Sit for an Alternate Ending. Martin and Klemick’s selection of functional objects defy industry norms and conventional practices to breathe new life into materials otherwise deemed futile. Opening August 18th and running through September 29th, the exhibition will showcase each artist’s approach to the use of materials that are seen as no longer holding value – and prove disbelievers wrong. In other words, there are many alternate endings that don’t include a landfill.

A highlight of the show is Martin’s ‘Sarcophagus’ series. “Treasure chests, tombs, urns, bank vaults, shipping containers. Sarcophagus. As a species we seem to think we are owners of things, land, and property. The Sarcophagus series is built in the same spirit, but encourages you to realize your duty as a custodian of few, a precious talisman which shifts your viewfinder of life,” he said.

“I realized I was kind of moving towards making these body shaped cabinets to keep custody of our most spiritually reaffirming objects from others,” Martin shared of the process. “And there could be no other title than Sarcophagus. Even though the pieces are not tombs nor granite, they carry the same spirit of wonder that the Egyptian civilization has elucidated the world with.”

The artist’s work with discarded materials make a lot of sense when you see how it aligns with her design ethos, because Klemick draws from her ancestral lineage of craftspeople to create heirlooms of the future. “I see that I am just a continuation of the generations before that worked with their hands. My work pays homage to traditional Amish quilts. There is a sentiment in quilt making that imperfections are to be emphasized, to hide them would erase the human hands that made them, and the only thing capable of perfection exists in the spiritual realm.”

Klemick shared, “In a practical sense I want my works to bring joy to the space they occupy, providing a sense of ease to those that utilize them. Working in shapes that if repeated next to one another would create an infinite pattern, just as the lifecycle of a material is infinite. Even when ‘destroyed’ it is charred into our atmosphere, laying somewhere in decay but never truly disappearing.”

To learn more about the Please Sit for the Alternate Ending exhibition, visit objectivegallery.com.

Source: design-milk