Salon 94 Bowery's current exhibit Huma Bhabha: Sculptures features six new works by the Pakistan-born, Poughkeepsie-based artist. Known for creating unusual and unconventional sculptures from found materials including Styrofoam, cork, wire, wood, metal, skulls, bones, sand, tree branches and clay, Bhabha oftentimes incorporates the bases of her pieces into the works "as stage, landscape, and body," (from show's press release).
Her figurative works, such as Tupac Amaru and Bleekman, assembled from a motley mix of clay, wood, wire, Styrofoam, plastic, fabric, acrylic paint, ink, paper, seed pods, and a horn, possess imaginative features and inventively-formed body parts and limbs. They resemble "both ancient sculpture and futuristic cyborgs" or space aliens or oddities, while her bronze sculpture, Cel, resembles a more traditional, ancient, regal figure. Other works by Bhabha resemble modern architecture with their towering, blocky, sky-scraper-like forms. An untitled piece stands on its overturned base, which reveals a "hidden painting and object" inside its hollow center.
As Bhabha states in an Art in America interview, like science fiction, a genre that heavily influences the artist, her work deals with "the state of the world, the future and the fate of human beings." Bhabha's sculptures are unique, eccentric, and fascinating. Learn more at salon94.com and read the full Art in America interview here. Through December 19th.
*An exhibiton of Huma Bhabha's hand-painted/drawn photographs are concurrently on view at Peter Blum's Chelsea gallery until January 15, 2011. Bhabha's 2007 sculpture The Orientialist can also be seen in Statuesque at City Hall Park until December 3rd.
Finger, 2010
Tupac Amaru, 2010
H.Q., 2010
Bleekmen, 2010
Untitled, 2010
Cel, 2010
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