Jessica Stockholder | Angled Tangle | 2014

Jessica Stockholder uses common materials, found in any hardware store, to create crazy quilt-like installations whose colorful forms and complex shapes upend our expectations about the logic of three-dimensional space. She is one of the most noted sculptors of her generation, breaking down the gendered barriers that drive much dialogue around large, muscular sculpture. Her large-scale indoor and outdoor commissions defy our expectations of controlled social space, freeing the viewer up to discover quirky tableaux as they circulate around her works. Stockholder’s wall sculptures are charming, if sly, comments on how we create our own spaces, cobbling together shapes and textures the way birds build their nests. 

Angled Tangle uses materials typically found in the street—the bollards and curbs that control how we navigate our channels of travel. She tops her playful maze with a tangle of bright lights, giving us a new outdoor room in which we can romp. Stockholder reclaims public spaces away from the rational calculations of urban planners, and restores a sense of cheer for adults as we navigate the demands of daily life—suggesting that play should be part of our adult world.