ERIK SCOLLON: OBJECT CHOICE

For Object Choice, Scollon continues a thread that was laid down in his previous exhibition at Romer Young Gallery, and/both. In and/both Scollon introduced a series of ceramic blocks, seductive in color but intentionally ambiguous in scale. Scollon described the boxes as being the queer babies of "John Mason, Scott Burton, and Tony Smith, but raised by Mary Heilmann." Their reductive form and unexpected simplicity opened up the possibility of individualized and particularized engagements, both emotional and intellectual. Scollon presents a new series of these elusive and allusive forms, which exist in states of negotiation, activating the viewers' encounter and opening up the ways in which the viewer is implicated in the work.

Adding to these ideas, Scollon will include for the first time a series of wheel thrown coffee mugs - a private exercise that has sustained his studio practice for almost thirty years. Juxtaposed with the minimal, public facing sculptures these humble and accessible mugs offer a more intimate counterpart. Together, these works show how things have both changed and stayed the same over time. Both respond to the user and become what the user needs them to be; both are pathways to an affective and emotive experience. Scollon notes:

"In the past I’ve used a single text/theory to act as the framework or entry point to the things I’ve made. But I started to feel that kind of didacticism could limit how one might see and understand the work. Instead I want to offer up something more akin to my sketchbook, raw ideas that bounce against possible ways to think through what the work “could” be. If anything, these objects are the bastard offspring of an alleyway hook up between the decorative arts and conceptual art that was somehow generated from the poetry of Eileen Myles, 'Cruising Utopia' by José Esteban Muñoz, Maurice Merleau-Ponty’s theories of embodiment and perception, documents of past social spaces carved and variously represented in the archives of GLBT Historical Society. The reproduction of the aesthetics of online cruising culture, the art of Scott Burton, a lecture by Sarah Ahmed, the limits of typeface design, legibility and readability, and Jean Genet’s “Our Lady of the Flowers,”

ERIK SCOLLON is an artist and educator based in San Francisco, California. He received his BFA from Albion College, and an MFA in Ceramics along with an MA in Visual and Critical Studies, both from California College of the Arts. His work has been exhibited and seen in venues as diverse as galleries, craft fairs, museum shows, and gay biker bars. Institutional exhibitions include, Albion College, MI; Watershed Center for the Ceramic Arts, MA; Asian Art Museum and Southern Exposure, San Francisco. Scollon was also selected to participate in Yerba Buena Center for the Arts’ Bay Area Now 5 triennial. Scollon is an Associate Professor and Chair of the First Year CORE Studio Program at California College of the Arts.