in dialogue
Outcropping, Erica Stoller’s recent solo show at A.I.R. Gallery, which ran through November 10th, utilized cardboard cuttings, formerly boxes, and packaging, as its exclusive material. When walking through the gallery, one noticed the show has three sections– a corner piece that covers two walls, floor to ceiling, a grid of individual cardboard compositions hung on the wall and a third “sandwiches” station that allowed viewers to pick up layered cardboard batches. Proceeds from the sale of the “sandwiches” go to Feeding America. An interesting survey of installation art—a site-specific installation, painting-like works on a wall, and an interactive piece. Stoller often works with space in curious ways. In Item # 25-033, her 2022 solo show at A.I.R. Gallery, she created a single wall-to-wall installation using Manilla rope and elastic bands. The rope cut through the gallery space, creating framed planes between ceiling pipes, wall hooks, and the floor.
It seems the three installation formats in your most recent installation are important in showing how the material performs in each of them. Can you expand on what made you showcase all of them together in Outcropping?
Yes, there are 3 main sections here. In the main gallery, each cardboard element had been made as a separate unit. The two adjacent walls are like a puzzle that solved itself. I did have a plan in mind but discarded the idea as soon as the work was in the gallery. The larger elements were mounted first; then, the others filled in. Finally, extra pieces were leaned against the wall. Toward the front of the gallery, a few choice small works are installed in a more formal, linear manner. On the other side, the cardboard sandwiches are piled on a stack of horizontal bicycle boxes. There’s no up or down, top or bottom to these handheld collages. Some fold-uppable works in the entry area are visible from the street.
Sounds like you’re pulling from different relationships these objects have to the viewer and their original use.
These works are made from familiar stuff; everyone touches cardboard, and opening a box is always an adventure. I wanted the display to be accessible and for the shapes and textures to encourage engagement. Also, I was interested in defying the “don’t touch the art” credo. It’s about the process: noticing, rescuing, handling, making, stopping to look. The useful character of the material may have been transformed– but not glorified– and only for a little while.
You seemingly lean on the material quite a bit in figuring out your installations.
Materials are the subject matter of my work and have been for a long time. Early paintings on canvas were sliced into strips, and the resulting “ribbons” stretched in front of the frame. Later, there were airy wall pieces made of unexpected industrial materials such as PVC tubes, parachute cords, metal bead chains, and plastic cable ties. The configuration brought to mind utility poles, wires and cables. Item # 25-033, my 2022 exhibition at A.I.R., was made of sisal rope stretched from wall to wall, “wires” with hard shadows. Then, as of now, the handling and installation of the ingredients are determined by the materials themselves.
Item # 25-033 sounds like it’s derived from another index. Where did it come from?
The title of that show is the catalog number of the primary material; it’s a 300-foot reel of ⅜” sisal rope and is only poetic insofar as it’s descriptive and functional.
Is that important? That the work’s poetics derive from function?
Perhaps I misunderstand poetics since I feel so strongly about the physicality of the material, the tension, and the connectors, as being the reason for the whole installation. The added orange knots of parachute cord tightened the ropes so they vibrated on contact and, in dry weather, even made a boingy noise. For the earlier rope in a linear way and now with the planar configurations of the cardboard, I hope visitors look and touch and become familiar with these unheralded materials.
The materials used in Outcropping had a previous life for storage and transportation. Do you research your cardboard and its sources? Does that change how you interact with the work or how you flesh out your final installations?
I have used boxes and sheets of cardboard in the past, but after recently moving my home and my studio (each twice), it was impossible to overlook the quantity of it. That stuff is everywhere and frequently ignored, un-fancy yet useful material. My main sources are residential trash, a bike shop, and a photo mounting place. Often, those who collect and then provide the material become complicit in the project…or at least familiar with my surprising enthusiasm. Friends contributed stuff, too: on the big wall, one can find sections of a Dutch tulip box with punched-out circles. All in all, the sources, shapes, sizes, and textures are part of the story. Sometimes print elements are included, but mostly not, and never Amazon.
First, I’d rescue the stuff, then unfold and “neutralize” the boxes. In addition to the original contents, one can see where the paper itself was manufactured, recycled or not, and decipher the quality and strength code (“edge crush test”). Even after I destroy the boxes to use the inside, unprinted panels, the modules of manufacturing, shipping, and delivery remain part of the work. The corrugation seems to ask for one straight slice while cutting against the grain exposes the internal structure. I work quickly, without a plan, cutting, layering, or gluing. On the back of each unit there is a twine apparatus for hanging. The pieces are photographed individually and in chronological bunches.
There seems to be a critical relationship between the cardboard “sandwiches” and Feeding America, a real nonprofit that will translate the proceeds into food (perhaps real sandwiches). Is this a consideration in your process, to point to a system that allows for so much waste, both cardboard and food waste, but very little social structure that supports food security?
The sandwiches are made of leftover cardboard. In real life, food scraps might become soup, but these two-dimensional studio scraps turn into textural hand-held collages.
Selling the sandwiches for $20 each for the benefit of Feeding America is symbolic and may provide food for thought about insecurity and inequality…especially as I type this on Wednesday, November 6. Feeding America. Bemoaning America.
The price of the sandwiches feels fitting, you could imagine paying $20 for a sandwich in an expensive trendy neighborhood. Do you configure pricing into the content of your work?
Aside from the sandwiches, the pricing system for the other work is based on volume: Lx W x H x 10 cents. A measuring tape is hanging on the wall near the sandwiches. A few of the wall pieces have actually been sold for between $45 and $60 each. But I neglected to explain to visitors that the large wall piece is made of individual elements that could be measured, priced, and purchased. Oh, well….
That’s interesting, there’s a sense that the work is made from a standardized system, and then it’s sold in another standardized system. This makes me wonder about authorship, both in relation to the use of cardboard as a manufactured material, as well as your individual compositions becoming one site-specific work. Where are the objects going once the show is over?
Once the exhibition is over, the work will be dismantled and the material sent to recycling, which is not so easy. And it’s costly. There is no commercial recycling in New York City so I’ve had to make my own arrangements…and will pay as much for recycling this work as I would have to truck it back to my studio.
Authorship means taking responsibility? I might prefer custodianship, a temporary state, as things keep moving: I make this. I am OK doing it. Even showing it. But in the end, I’d like not to be determined by it…so documentation remains while the work itself will disappear.
All Photos credit: Jeff Goldberg/Esto
About the writer: Bat-Ami Rivlin is a New York-based sculptor, educator, and writer. She has contributed art reviews to the Brooklyn Rail and edited The Materiality of A.I.R. a publication project for A.I.R. Gallery’s 2020-21 fellowship program. Notable exhibitions include Boat, Plastic, Tire, L21, Spain (2023-24); Simple Sabotage, Kunsthal NORD, Denmark (2023-24); The Socrates Annual, Socrates Sculpture Park, NY (2023-24); COLAPSO, Tenerife Espacio de las Artes, Spain (2022); EN-SITIO, Museo de la Ciudad de Querétaro, Mexico (2022); whereabouts, Hessel Museum of Art, CCS Bard, NY (2022); No Can Do, M 2 3, NY (2021); and more. Rivlin’s work was featured in publications such as Artforum, BOMB, Brooklyn Rail, Flash-Art, émergent magazine, Artnet, PIN-UP, Office Magazine, The Paris Review, Public Parking, and more. Rivlin holds an MFA from Columbia University. She is the recipient of the Monira Foundation Residency, Sculpture Space Residency, 1708 Gallery Residency, Socrates Sculpture Park Fellowship, A.I.R. Gallery Fellowship, among others.
About the artist: Erica Stoller lives outside of New York City and has been affiliated with A.I.R Gallery for more than ten years. She graduated from Bennington College, worked at the Brooklyn Museum, for Ileana Sonnabend in Paris, and for many years was involved with photography and architecture as the director of Esto. Her work has been exhibited internationally at Attleboro Art Museum, MA; The Arsenal, NY; Radiator Gallery, NY; Local 30, Poland; Gallery 44, Sweden; ARC, IL; A.I.R. Gallery, NY and more. Collections include Sony, Bank of Tokyo, Rockefeller Center, Western Pacific, County Federal Savings, American Health Foundation, CTI, Lehman Bros, Viacom, Reich and Tang, Texaco, Art Assets/Barbara Paley, and private collections.