Amy Brener: Harbingers | Opens May 17 at The Aldrich
Harbingers is the fifth installment of Aldrich Projects
On view May 17, 2023 to September 3, 2023
Amy Brener: Harbingers is the artist’s first solo museum presentation in the US and the fifth installment of Aldrich Projects, a quarterly series that features a singular work or a focused body of work by a single artist on the Museum’s campus. Suspended from the ceiling in the Museum’s Leir Atrium, Flexi-Shield Harbinger (rose) and Flexi-Shield Harbinger (ice), both 2021, are larger-than-life forms that lightly graze the floor as they hover side-by-side in front of the lobby’s central wall.
Part of an ongoing body of work titled Flexi-Shields (2015–present), the Harbingers are made of cast silicone embedded with varying found, store-bought, and organic items such as auto fuses, pressed flowers, safety pins, plastic tooth flossers, mini screwdrivers, buttons, and brackets. Brener’s process further emphasizes her interest in consumer detritus as she creates molds through a synthesis of leftovers: car mats, discarded container lids, and architectural pediments. The medley of everyday trinkets and throwaway objects are meticulously arranged within the molds and photographed. They are then removed and returned to their stagings after the silicone pouring.
Brener’s knickknacks are not only chosen for their disposability and “junk drawer” appeal, but also for their wide-ranging utility. A variety of use values intrinsic to these tiny implements are essential to the functionality of the Harbingers, as the Dollar Store finds encapsulated within their rubbery niches may one day be the tools necessary for survival. Ruminating on Sci-Fi concepts and post-apocalyptic scenarios, Brener’s imagined futures are rooted in a digital world where hand tools are deemed obsolete—a reality that doesn’t seem too far off from our present-day moment. The Harbingers, as their titles imply, act as omens, signals, or forecasters, that hint to an approaching time where preservation, safekeeping, and women’s empowerment are critical. Fully equipped with “emergency kit” instruments and utensils, the Harbingers are charged with a bewitching energy; their luminous, semi-transparent bodies revealing the storage units integral to their structures, referencing both the “motherboards” foundational to technological devices as well as the life-supporting systems of the female body.
Amy Brener: Harbingers is organized by the Museum’s Curatorial & Publications Manager Caitlin Monachino.