Metal Machine Music

I once saw Julia Znoj smithing metal on, or near, the site of a former human zoo. Are the iron coils she makes about this dark history of oppression? Are the sculptures about her lovely yet perplexing last name? If you ask Angelika Loderer when her family’s foundry was established, she will tell you about her great grandfather. Are the strands of her hair, cast in bronze, about this history? Is the fact that Martyn Reynolds drove past the Hundertwasser McDonalds, on his way to pick up pieces cast by Loderer’s brother relevant to the depictions of Sino-US relations you see printed on his sculptures? How about the fact that Hundertwasser and Reynolds both spent significant amounts of time in New Zealand? I watched Irinia Lotarevich carefully preserve the sand she used to cast aluminum, she shops at Spar, and regrets not buying a certain T-shirt at a Palladian Villa in the Veneto Region of Italy. Is the luster of the metal she chooses a symptom of her frugal lifestyle? Rachel Fäth has a personality that belies the stereotypes of her Bavarian origins. Her outgoing charm seems too eager for central Europe, but welcome in New York City. She molds her place in the Big Apple, like Genzken, Haacke, and Koether before her. Did you need to know that to appreciate her dot-welded forms? Lone Haugaard Madsen cuts off her jeans into shorts during the summer. She keeps the pant’s legs and sews them back on in the winter. Is this what led to her picking up bronze drippings, knowing they needed to be saved, to become part of her oeuvre? Metal Machine Music, was an album released in 1975 by Lou Reed. It is four sides of drone sounds that are not easily listened to, read, or understood. It has been called either the best or worst album in the world, but it has so few “footholds” that we really have to look at the material and try to understand it. I encourage you to look at the metal in the show. It’s heavy, it’s musical, and like all good art, saying just exactly what it is about is impossible.