ART CITIES:N.York-James Maurelle
James Maurelle is an interdisciplinary artist—sculpture, video, photography, and sound art are his analog and digital primes. His work has been shown in solo and group exhibitions in New York, Minneapolis-Saint Paul, Austin, Philadelphia, New Orleans, Richmond, Cincinnati, and San Francisco. Maurelle received his BFA from the San Francisco Art Institute and his MFA from the University of Pennsylvania. He was a recipient of the Skowhegan School of Painting and Sculpture Fellowship in 2015.
By Dimitris Lempesis
Photo CUE Art Foundation Archive
James Maurell’s solo exhibition “On-Site” consists of sculptures and prints crafted from materials such as wood, metal, and found objects that weld form and function with Black cultural histories. Through a formal engagement with a vernacular derived from Black American traditions of making and African woodworking traditions, the work celebrates methods of defiance and achievement in the face of oppressive systems and structures. The triumphs and subversions of Black athletes navigating what scholar Christina Sharpe calls the climate of anti-Blackness are recurrent themes in Maurelle’s work. “Edson” named after Edson Arantes do Nascimento (Pelé), is an assemblage of found wood resembling a footrest for shining shoes topped with sharp wooden spikes, recalling the manual labor the soccer star engaged in as a child in order to help support his family. “Sky Hooks”, named after the basketball shot famously perfected by Kareem Abdul-Jabbar, consists of a scythe-shaped tool with two loops of delicately, decoratively carved wood at its top in place of a blade; loops that appear just large enough to hold human wrists. “Friday Night” references tennis legend Althea Gibson and consists of table tennis paddles with extended handles made from vintage hot combs. This intervention draws attention to the public scrutiny and social pressures that have followed the visibility of successful Black female athletes throughout history, particularly with regards to appearance and beauty standards. Many of Maurelle’s sculptures recall the labor and endurance involved with their suggested use, and reflect the artist’s own labor and endurance in their creation as he reckons with historic events and figures and transcribes them into physical objects. In “Fred” the bullet wound described in the autopsy report of murdered Black Panther Party Chairman Fred Hampton is rendered in an otherwise abstracted wooden bust, painstakingly shaved down during a process that elicited Maurelle’s own blood and spit. These associations are further revealed in works such as “Who’s Next…”, in which the backrest of a wooden chair hangs limp, and “B. Natchez”, a formally beautiful yet menacing object in its recall of a pillory with nails exposed on one side. The artist will further explore themes of labor, endurance, and visibility during a 24 hour live-streamed performance in which Maurelle will bring parts of his studio into the gallery and work in public view on 1-2/10/2021from 10am. Maurelle’s work holds space for the simultaneity of Black agency, resiliency, and excellence in the face of an ongoing spectrum of violence leveraged against Black individuals and communities by white supremacy. He works across space and time, calling the past into the present and future as he imbues his subjects and objects with new meaning.
Photo: James Maurelle, Aangename Kennismaking (Pleased to Meet You), 2020, wood, adhesive, paint, canvas, and metal , 43.5 x 28 x 14 inches, © James Maurelle , Photo by Karen Mauch, Courtesy the artist and CUE Art Foundation
Info: Curator: Odili Donald Odita, CUE Art Foundation, 137 West 25th Street, Ground Floor, Between 6th and 7th Avenue, New York, NY, USA, Duration: 17/9-23/10/2021, Days & Hours: Wed-Sat 10:00-18:00, https://cueartfoundation.org
