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York at Braunstein Quay: Santa Fe, N.M., artist Susan York pitches the
work she shows at Braunstein Quay in an aesthetic register starkly different
from those in which Sales and Sintamarian operate.
York presents two types of sculpture here: older wall pieces in which
wafers of unglazed porcelain sit stacked or slotted in small armatures of
wood or metal, and more recent ones made of molded, fired graphite.
The porcelains evoke breakability and the tentative nature of the
structures - even architecture - that support everyday routine. The
generally small graphite solids, shown alongside a few graphite drawings,
present themselves almost as marks that have taken on volume.
Encountering one of the untitled graphite wall pieces, the mind hurries
to decide that it is a symmetrical rectangular solid. But the eye soon feels
discomfort, even frustration - a feeling that begins to suffuse one's body -
as it discovers that York has refused to make any angle perfectly square,
any plane perfectly parallel to another.
These fine deviations do more than irritate. They intensify observation
and distill in abstract form the fundamental difficulty we face every day
inhabiting a reality that almost never conforms to our notions about it.
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