Bat Ami Rivlin, who has lived in New York City for over a decade, finds her artistic practice profoundly shaped by the city’s relentless cycle of object turnover. The daily expulsion of waste from restaurants, buildings, and homes onto the streets, followed by the inevitable clear-out, is a stark reflection of urban existence. This phenomenon sparks contemplation on how these transient objects organize our spatial interactions, both during their use and after their disposal.
Rivlin’s collected objects evolve into intriguing prompts, inviting deeper engagement. “Recognizing these objects as tools seemed more and more like an interpretive act. Function as an imaginary world-building instrument; what we instinctively know to do with something is also what that something is,” says Rivlin. The human scale is embedded in nearly all the objects she interacts with, whether in the proportions designed for a hand-hold, the “average” height, or the weight capacity. This inherent human element makes it easier to pinpoint them as actions for the body. Rivlin says these objects hold practical promises, announcing a given ecology of matter before we begin to question its effects. In the following interview, we will dig deeper into Rivlin’s work.
I loved Jeffrey Kastner’s Artforum review of your solo show No, Can Do at M 2 3 (2021), where the writer characterizes your work as a “conceptual junkyard where incapacitated things reveal themselves.” Through that lens, let’s look at Untitled (inflatable kayak, zip ties).
I really like that review as well. Jeffrey was able to tap into something in the work that I wasn’t all aware of at the time. When making No Can Do, it was important for me to make work from things that were already around me; I just wasn’t too sure as to why. When I read through his review, it became clear that the rearranging of a given cluster of things in the world was a way of revealing a systematic agenda. Things are all around us, all of the time. Objects that are discarded reveal something about the speed at which we consume, but more than that, their discarded-ness inserts a pause in the object’s function. The object can no longer act in use but continues the phenomena of its function anyway. If I think of Untitled (inflatable kayak, zip ties) through this lens, it’s another example of thrown-away objects getting rearranged into a constellation that keeps performing. Only the performance is fragmented and nonsensical, which allows the objects to reveal their categorization–the functional narratives through which we see objects around us and, consequently, the spaces they occupy.
Kastner defines your work as “bricolage.” I also see it as an “installation.” Does the definition matter to you, and what is your take on it?
Bricolage works well as a definition because a large part of the practice has to do with readily available objects. This would often be in or around the studio if the works are made in New York. An extension of that concept couples with site-specificity by sourcing local materials for installations in different locations. Projects such as EN-SITIO, a solo exhibition I did in Mexico in 2022, utilized worn-out truck tires for one of its installations from a local transportation company (UTEP). The effect of the “readily available” is that the exhibition space itself, in this case, the museum, gets reframed into the objects’ economic path. The objects were picked up at the end of the exhibition to a recycling center, rendering the museum a mere stop on the object’s way to its original destination.
Similarly, Untitled (lawn mowers, caution tape), 2023, at Kunsthall NORD, Denmark, was made from lawn mowers and caution tape from junkyards close to the museum. The work was proposed as another bathtub installation, but once that proved too difficult to source, we opted for whatever object was most commonly discarded in local junk yards. At the time, there was a large turnover of lawnmowers as Aalborg residents were replacing older models with newer, more “ecologically friendly” machines. Lawnmowers are used to manicure one’s “domestic outside,” carrying a set of territorial aesthetics, as well as domestic waste, that expands outside the household.
In this sense, the objects aren’t solely furnishing an already established installation plan but act as a deciding, almost authorial, factor in what installations local ecologies of objects “allow.”
Your objects are all found and deeply rooted in the place, society, and culture where you found them. Stripped from their functionality, the objects still carry ontological cues—a kayak is a kayak, and a zip tie is a zip tie—invoking a memory of their functionality within a societal and cultural context—400 pink bedpans in Governors Island, NY, and 200 white bedpans in Denmark. These objects also reinforce a strong sense of our body in relation to them. Can we look at these bedpans in that context – the genesis of these two projects and their relationship to each other?
The bedpan work was first made in Governors Island in 2020, then installed again at Sharp Projects in Copenhagen in 2021. Similarly to other works, the objects furnishing the installations are sourced from the locality of the exhibition. This doesn’t just save on airfare, it often makes interesting formal deviations from the original work.
The pink kidney basins (erroneously tagged “bedpans” in the surplus store where I got them, hence their title) are the US version. When the work was exhibited in Denmark, the most common kidney basins available were larger, off-white, and shallower. They were installed relative to the gallery space, so their spatial relationship was layered, sourced from the local pool of objects, and installed in relation to a specific site.
The objects’ function almost always boils down to a certain body proportion. Sometimes, that relationship is obvious, such as with “body containers” like bathtubs. Other times, the object is merely made to fit comfortably in our hand. Most of us live in built environments where objects, architecture, and even vegetation are all designed with a certain body in mind. In this case, kidney basins are made to fit well against a patient’s body, hence their bean shape.
Your objects have inherent color and shape, but you choose to utilize and place them. I would like to understand better how your approach to form, color, and placement in space has developed from your earlier work onward. Let’s look at the relationship from this perspective between Untitled (LED, cord, duct tape), 2023, and an earlier work of your choice.
Form, color, and placement are relevant in the same “readily-available” sense that objects are. Although I totally agree that there’s no erasing my presence in amassing these objects, which certainly has a bias. Untitled (LED, cord, duct tape) is a good example because its cord is orange when exhibited in the U.S. but turned yellow when exhibited in Copenhagen. There’s a Home Depot type of aesthetics to the orange here, but when working with a curator in Copenhagen she mentioned the standard there would be different. The color changed, but the piece kept its conceptual integrity because the relationship to locality was maintained.
You sometimes repeat using the same objects in variations throughout your work: duct tape, bathtubs, and tires. How do you choose which objects to use, and what do these variations mean for you?
I often pursue a bulk number of objects–be it tires, kidney basins, bathtubs, etc. As products become standardized, sculpture and installation projects in various locations express a sort of ‘global locality.’ While objects populating different locations might vary in quantity and waste, their similarities render entire sections of our built environments almost identical. A good example of this is 2 separate works: Untitled (12 tubs), 2022, installed in Espacio de las Artes in Tenerife, Spain, and Untitled (12 tubs), 2023, installed at Socrates Sculpture Park in Queens, NY. Both installations used locally sourced bathtubs to create shapes that were dependent on the scavenged tubs being nearly the same proportions. In Untitled (12 tubs), 2022, the tubs were hollowed out in their middle part and made into a chain; in Untitled (12 tubs), 2023, the tubs were mounted on a structure to create a 12-sided wheel. These installations could have been produced almost anywhere, which speaks to how, with all the slight changes in form and color, locality is flattened into an industrial vision of function. Economic interests are quite literally shaping our lives.
About the artist: Bat-Ami Rivlin is a New York-based sculptor, educator, and writer working with found and surplus objects. Solo exhibitions include Boat, Plastic, Tire, L21, Spain (2023-24); EN-SITIO, Museo de la Ciudad de Querétaro, Mexico (2022); Untitled (inflatable house, zip ties, blower), A.I.R. Gallery, NY (2021); No Can Do, M 2 3, NY (2021); It All Trembles, NARS Foundation, NY (2019). Select group shows include Simple Sabotage, Kunsthal NORD, Denmark (2023-24); The Socrates Annual, Socrates Sculpture Park, NY (2023-24); COLAPSO, Tenerife Espacio de las Artes, Spain (2022); whereabouts, Hessel Museum of Art, CCS Bard, NY (2022); Excess and Surplus, (two-person) Sharp Projects, Denmark (2021); In/Between, New York Live Arts, NY (2020). Rivlin’s work was featured in publications such as Artforum, BOMB, Brooklyn Rail, Flash-Art, Artnet, PIN-UP Magazine, Office Magazine, The Paris Review, Public Parking, and more. Rivlin holds an MFA from Columbia University (2019). She is the recipient of the Socrates Sculpture Park Fellowship (2023-24), Two Trees BSI fellowship (2021-22), A.I.R. Gallery Fellowship (2020-21), among others.