Copyright 2007-2017
Built with Indexhibit

Various Small Fires, Los Angeles, CA
June 4-July 17, 2021

Isabel put together another sculpture show. It’s going to be an ongoing thing, folding in new artists and works along the way but with a throughline of those who have been with it from the beginning. The first show was called Your Presence is Encouraged and when she told me the title for this new iteration was going to be Psychosomatic I flashed back to the time I took an Uber to the hospital alone on Thanksgiving because I’d been bleeding for days, my underwear spotting bright red at odd intervals in the month. The ER took me in right away. They drew some blood, they took a lot of x-rays, they even gave me a transvaginal ultrasound—the procedure itself wasn’t so bad; more unnerving was the nurse making vague noises of concern, or pursing her lips as she watched the ultrasound screen, which I couldn’t see. They had no idea what could be wrong. I wanted to calm myself down, but I‘d been in this situation before. I have gone to see a doctor, seeking validation that some uncomfortable, nagging symptom is only a minor issue and being given the worst news possible. I knew that there’s no reason for it to not happen again. It would take an hour or so for anything to show up on the tests, so I lay in the little bed, crinkling the paper sheets as I pulled the book by John Berger I’d been reading from my purse, and got to the last page:

What reconciles me to my own death more than anything else is the image of a place: a place where your bones and mine are buried, thrown, uncovered, together. They are strewn there pell-mell. One of your ribs leans against my skull. A metacarpal of my left hand lies inside your pelvis. (Against my broken ribs your breast like a flower). The hundred bones of our feet are scattered like gravel. It is strange that this image of our proximity, concerning as it does mere phosphate of calcium, should bestow a sense of peace. Yet it does. With you I can imagine a place where to be phosphate of calcium is enough.

After that I felt, it’s chill. I could die. It’s a good feeling. Very calm, I wish for everyone to have it at some point. And of course right then the doctor came in and said everything on the tests looked good. But, he added...have I been under a lot of stress? Because it’s possible to stress-induce a period. It’s actually quite common. How have I never heard of this before?

I used to have a pet theory of art—that it is a manifest antidote to the insufficiency of language, but I’m not sure that’s all of it. Presence and psychosis are vaguely concerns of sculpture and I think that’s why I’ve been mad for it lately; I think the former is the antidote to the latter. Art is not therapy and it is certainly not medicine but most of us agree, right now, how nice it is to go to a place and look at things
and I do enjoy the kaleidoscope of meaning made possible when things are arranged against other things, and to put on an interesting outfit to hold a plastic cup of wine and arrange ourselves against such things. This is all to say—can’t wait to see you at the opening!

—Christina Catherine Martinez

Artists:
Alison Saar
Alison Veit
Amanda Ross-Ho
Amelia Lockwood
Amy Yao
Anna Sew Hoy
Anne Libby
Erin Bagley
Dwyer Kilcollin
Isabel Yellin
Kristin Morgin
Nevine Mahmoud
Olivia Erlanger
Rosha Yaghmai
Trulee Hall

http://isabelyellin.com/files/gimgs/th-23_ALS001_Still Run Dry_2012_36x68x20_LR copy.jpg
http://isabelyellin.com/files/gimgs/th-23_ASH024_Coupled Aspiration_2021_21x24x13_5 (each)_LR copy.jpg
http://isabelyellin.com/files/gimgs/th-23_AL001_Untitled_2021_56x34_LR copy.jpg
http://isabelyellin.com/files/gimgs/th-23_KM004_Two Yellow Books About Fish_2019_12_25x8_5x0_5_LR copy.jpg
http://isabelyellin.com/files/gimgs/th-23_KM005_The Velveteen Rabbit_2018_9_625x7_75x0_625_LR copy.jpg
http://isabelyellin.com/files/gimgs/th-23_KM003_Mr_ and Mrs_ Smith_2020_7_5x5_625x_75_LR copy.jpg
http://isabelyellin.com/files/gimgs/th-23_KM001_Alice in Wonderland_2019_7_25x5x1_LR copy.jpg
http://isabelyellin.com/files/gimgs/th-23_OE001_10 59 PM_2020_22x26x10_LR copy.jpg
http://isabelyellin.com/files/gimgs/th-23_NM001_Untitled (putting in work)_2021_13_5x21_x18_LR copy.jpg
http://isabelyellin.com/files/gimgs/th-23_AY127_Two eggs, the cracked one wins_2021_18x18x10_LR copy.jpg
http://isabelyellin.com/files/gimgs/th-23_IY001_Gut Feeling_2021_24x11x36_LR copy.jpg
http://isabelyellin.com/files/gimgs/th-23_RY005_Panel, Green Pink_2016_14_5x11_5x1_LR copy.jpg
http://isabelyellin.com/files/gimgs/th-23_ARH001_Untitled Crisis Actor (HURTS WORST 2)_2019_58x58_LR copy.jpg
http://isabelyellin.com/files/gimgs/th-23_DK001_Emergent Object Chair IX_2015_24 x 17 x 20_LR copy.jpg
http://isabelyellin.com/files/gimgs/th-23_TH001_Humping Corn, and Other Phallic Veg_2021__LR copy.jpg
http://isabelyellin.com/files/gimgs/th-23_RY001_Interior, Gazing_2020_10_5x8_25_LR copy.jpg
http://isabelyellin.com/files/gimgs/th-23_RY004_Interior, Creep_2020_10_5x8_25_LR copy.jpg
http://isabelyellin.com/files/gimgs/th-23_RY003_Interior, Ascending_2020_10_5x8_25_LR copy.jpg
http://isabelyellin.com/files/gimgs/th-23_RY002_Interior, Obliteration_2020_10_5x8_25_LR copy.jpg
http://isabelyellin.com/files/gimgs/th-23_aml lr.jpg
http://isabelyellin.com/files/gimgs/th-23_EB001_Splash Mountain_2021_25x21x21_LR copy.jpg
http://isabelyellin.com/files/gimgs/th-23_AV001_January_2021_40x19x5_LR copy.jpg