re:animation
Opening Reception: Saturday, August 5th, 2023, 6-8 PM
On view August 5 - September 2, 2023.
An exhibition by Cody Norman.
About re:animation
The Latin root animare means "give breath to" and "endow with spirit." This exhibition examines a new phase in Norman’s practice of extending and elevating the life cycle of plastic waste into art and design objects - “re-animating” trash found in alleys and dumpsters into new forms that also trace back to the original function of the objects left to the landfill.
Guided by this idea of tracing the history of the materials, the object presented in ‘re:animation’ is a chair made from shredded plastic Adirondack chairs that itself takes on an Adirondack form.
Over the past three years, the plastic chairs were collected and shredded by Norman who, inspired by this form so ubiquitous to trash piles, began to research the history of Adirondack chairs.
The Adirondack Chair was born from Tuberculosis. As the TB epidemic spread, sanitariums quickly emerged in the Adirondacks as an ideal environment for recovery and healing with fresh air and the relaxed atmosphere. The Adirondack chair, as we know it, was created to position the body in a way to pull the shoulders back and open ones’ chest up which was believed to alleviate painful TB symptoms.
Permutations of the original design quickly appeared from the workshops of weekend hobbyists to pedigreed designers such as Gerrit Rietveld, whose 1918 “Red and Blue Chair” and boxy 1934 “Crate Chair” exhibit similar DNA.
Very soon, the chair began to be produced in plastic and sold for a much lower price. Coming from a single plastic mold, the manual labor hours to produce one is almost nothing. However, being just a single piece of thin plastic, the chairs only weigh between 5-10 lbs., and while this makes them much easier to move and store it also makes them extremely susceptible to breaking.
As one recent review stated: “if buying a plastic Adirondack chair, expect to only get a good seat for a summer”. And so, it would seem the story would end.
But Norman re-traces this origin story, creating a new object with the discarded materials that not only re-animates the plastic “trash” but also the history and intention of the original Adirondack form, itself having become de-valued over time.
Gallery Hours: Friday / Saturday, 12-5pm + By Appointment
