Building Projects

Mark Jenkins, May 14, 2025

Four artists construct "UnFoldings"; Michael B. Platt layers people and places; Kathleen Callery and Marsha Staiger share color schemes; and Dairan Fernández de la Fuente dreams of travel

AN ALTERNATIVE TITLE FOR THE GROUP SHOW AT KLAGSBRUN STUDIO might be "Repurposings." The four local artists represented in "UnFoldings" dissect and reassemble boxes, books, and other artifacts, mostly made of paper. The results are complex and diverse, and often suggestive of earlier eras.

Sharapat Sarsenova Kessler is one of two participants whose style recalls Russian and Soviet Constructivism. Originally from Kazakhstan, the artist carves paper and cardboard into segments she uses to construct collages that include a puppet-like figure and a set of architectural arches, more impromptu than ceremonial. Inspired by her childhood exposure to quilt-making, Kessler builds things that seem as human as they are geometric.

There's also an echo of Constructivism in the 3D collages of Judy Greenberg, who served as the director of the Kreeger Museum from 1994 to 2017. She made three sets of stacked boxes, with Cubist-influenced drawing-collages pasted to their surfaces. While the box form is inherently tidy, Greenberg's approach is intuitive and emotional, notably in reaction to the current political situation. The mouth of a cut-together face spits a single expletive, small but potent. The country Greenberg observes seems to be not merely unfolding but unraveling.

From DisCerningEye, published May 14, 2025