Sky, Blue: Kahlil Robert Irving & Beverly Semmes

September 07 - September 07,2024

From Tureen: "This endeavor begins with mimesis. Two sets of objects occupy the exhibition space, both of which mirror the everyday. The viewer is invited into their reality only to find something more disruptive than initially bargained for. Tableware is an apple with a metal stem is a sliver of sky as lead pipe is ceramic; a series of dresses is a prone curtain drawn over the surface of the gallery. Nothing here is what the eye reads. In miming the tangible stuff of daily life, the artists call into question what counts as real, what things in the world deserve notice and how can they topple the act of noticing. Irving’s and Semmes’ sculptures use the archaeological human impulse as a lure with which to tell a story on the margins of contemporary culture.   Some logic of the outside world does persist. Blue means sky. Semmes’ work, Bow, covers the horizon line like a theatrical backdrop, its color so overwhelming that you move under and in it rather than around it. Bow catches the more literal sky in Irving’s work titled SKYTUBE & Silver Chalice \ Concrete tears embedded jewels (take me as I am) and proves the linguistic rule. But his sky sits flat on what the viewer clearly sees is a three dimensional void. There is of course a logical topography in SKYTUBE, the image of clouds floating above its structure, as there is in Bow’s relationship with the gallery. Both still confound. Blue means sky, but it doesn’t always mean freedom—Irving’s sky-shrouded tube recalls implements of oppression and violence, and Semmes’ gauzy tulle hangs melancholic, if ceremonial. Their blue knows its own depths in modern memory, the blues of militaristic authority and of unfulfilled promises of equality.   In spite of their artifice, there is profound honesty in the way these works engage their surroundings. Each knows its stride, settling into the architecture as if for a more permanent visit. These monuments cast their own import. Irving’s piece anchors itself into the hundred-year-old tile floor, embracing the history of its surroundings. These trappings—the tile, tin ceilings, terra cotta shingles, wooden cornices—were the product of a racialized industrial and commercial expansion in the American city. And while the history is somewhat masked by the perceived economic ideal of gentrification, the black base of its plinth backs up and drives over the question of aesthetic monumentality. Periods of decay are evident on every surface of the gallery, and mirrored in SKYTUBE, save the walls where Semmes’ work hangs. Hers is all volume and no weight, floating sentinels for an uncompromisingly gendered future, one that sees architectural space recolonized by the most delicate materials; the medium is the message.   What the viewer is left with, in spite of the doubt in one’s reality these objects engender, is desire. Like a coin you find tails up, glinting in the city’s daylight, they are a treat to encounter but a barb to hold in your mind. The bright blue tulle of Bow is a visual feast but its scale can almost suffocate; it wields a soft power. Irving’s ceramic has a handheld preciousness and its strata reveal gemlike, metallic discoveries. Both works disarm with their beauty but also use it as a mere top note the base of which is a deep longing. There are boxes and buildings for these jewels to reside in, but the inner life of the objects is lived too large and with too much knowing to permit your desire to stagnate. They want more and so must you."

Reception: September 07, 2024 | 6-8 pm

Tureen 901 West Jefferson Boulevard
Dallas, Texas 75208
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