Objects for a Heavenly Cave

Marta and guest curator Krista Mileva-Frank are pleased to present Objects for a Heavenly Cave, a group exhibition that explores the materiality and mythos of the grotto. Grottoes—cave-like spaces in which the natural and the artificial merge—have long been a vibrant site for material experimentation. The Renaissance grotto was an aesthetic laboratory and a place of symbiosis between human and non-human entities: stalactites ‘grew’ with the help of hidden water spouts, moss crept over lava rock walls, and microorganisms deteriorated marble sculptures. Designers learned from nature by staging and imitating petrification and decay, inventing the style we now know as the ‘grotesque.’

Inspired by a broad set of historical references, the thirteen artists and collectives in the exhibition consider these sensorily-rich spaces as a prompt for contemporary practice. Emma Witter’s electroformed copper oyster shell ‘shelves’ accrete like mineral formations onto the gallery walls. Masaomi Yasunaga’s glaze vessels studded with rocks and feldspar, emerge from the ashen kiln as if uncovered from the bottom of the ocean. James Naish’s cast bronze candelabra pululates with snail shells and Silk Floss tree spikes gathered on neighborhood walks.