In M+B Gallery’s new exhibition of artist Jesse Stecklow, Potential Derivatives, the works are all hung low near the floor, requiring close and crouched attention. Many of the pieces include air samples or the data collected from past samples in other exhibition spaces; along with an unfurled and reused roll of flypaper, they preserve past hangings of the show in its current iteration. In some works, lab-grade tuning forks collect sound waves from the gallery. In others, layers of photographed flypaper and chemical lists shift beneath both real and photo-edited holes, creating elusive and varied depth.
A list of the exhibition’s eclectic media, from the exhibition statement:
There is a speaker in a rotating barrel whose grilles are plugged with cumin. There is one box that rattles, one that taps, and a third that is quiet.
There are fly tapes and glue traps.
There is tuning fork three ways, elongated, blackened and quartz.
There is a pickled ghost text measured to fit the length of an office. There is an ignorant system of amber hung at equidistant points. There is recycled clock glass held in lead channels.
There are cages and ball bearing games and resonator boxes. There is data and some of its potential derivatives.