Wooster St, New York City
1989
Two years from the end of the "Dot" paintings, and after months of experimentation with different alternate materials (bleach, perfume, rubber...) I presented my first show at the new American Fine Arts Co. space on Wooster St. in SOHO. This involved the first time I had exhibited "Covered Sites", the combined use of fabrics and "social fluids" (at first waste water, then later to include medicinal markers, cosmetics, etc.) as a stand in for a "painting". Much of this exhibition was an homage to Robert Smithson's ideas of "site" and "non-site", and his concepts about the dislocation of the "social" space of the art object and it's relationship to the "natural" space of the world outside of it. These ideas still inform my work today.
Installation View
American Fine Arts Co.
Wooster St. ,SOHO, N.Y. City
1989
Installation View
American Fine Arts Co.
Wooster St. ,SOHO, N.Y. City
1989
Installation view
Capital Project: Covered Sites ( BB, CC, DD, EE )
Waste water over fabrics on canvas
Each 96" x 72"
1989
Installation view
Capital Project: Covered Sites ( BB, CC, DD, EE )
Waste water over fabrics on canvas
Each 96" x 72"
1989
Installation view
Rubber Rundown
wood, spandex, rubber, canvas, photo
dimensions variable
1989
This was a three part work in which the photo at left shows 3 sites along a highway where garbage has been thrown, the box in the foreground contains some of this refuse, and is covered by black spandex and poured black latex rubber. The "painting" at right is a canvas covered in the same black latex, and behind which is also refuse from the same photo site.
Installation view
Rubber Rundown ( Rubber Box Pour)
wood, spandex, rubber, refuse
@ 48" x 48" x 48"
1989
Rubber Rundown ( Rubber Site)
canvas, latex, refuse
@ 96" x 72" x 4"
1989
Rubber Rundown ( Photo Site)
Black and White photos framed
48" x 36"
1989
Detail center photo Rubber Rundown (Photo Site)
image size @ 7" x 10"
1989
Installation View
8 stops on a thirty foot section
8 framed photographs, canvas, wooden box
1989
This was another "grouped" work. The eight photographs depict a thirty foot stretch of deserted "section" along the Brooklyn Queens Expressway (where I walked everyday to get to my studio) where garbage has been left. Inside the box is a rolled thirty foot length of unprimed canvas that was soaked in the effluence collected at the same site.
Installation View (office)
Triple Boxed Glue Pour
canvas, refuse, wooden case, glue
@ 48" x 48" x 12"
1989
Three "Smithson" statistical glue pours (one gallon per pour) are bracketed in three separate compartments of one piece. Inside the canvas is garbage collected from three sites (not pictured). The photos can be seen along the back rear right wall in top installation image from
this page.
Roberta Smith
Exhibition at American
Fine Arts Co.
1989
Several paintings, which the artist refers to as “Covered
Sites” have been made by soaking canvas in water taken from the
All told, this is a highly imperfect and rather immature show, but also a highly engaging one.
Gallery Staff American Fine Arts, Jackie MaCallister, Director Mimi Wheeler,
and friend of gallery Andy Arons
With daughter Katie 1989