Function
Curatorial Statement

The early american modern architect, Louis Sullivan, stating that design is a reflection of material, structural, and social functions, infamously declared:

“form ever follows function”

Function deconstructs the modernist barriers and boundaries between form and function, between fine and utilitarian artworks. This exhibition defines design as structure at work, and utility as aesthetic form, presenting a manifestation of Craft in engineered material and conceptual space. The concept of “function” is re-contextualized. The exhibit poses the very question of functionality in our mechanical landscape and contemporary society. Function points a finger at a civilization textured with object making, tools, devices, products, consumerism, mechanization, and the comfortable existence that such objects and design afford.

Function finds passion in process. This exhibition is tactilely and viscerally infused with the smell, smoke, fire, dust, wax, dye, sand, grind, and joining of object making. The show collects work from various regional artists who delve into the idea, concept, utility, and aesthetic of “function”. Some of the exhibition’s artists make artwork that succinctly “works”, some work shifts perception of an object’s functional role, others find an aesthetic in the manufactured and discarded, or in objects of practical utility made non-functional, while still others explore a new visual language deriving from a memory of our industrialized, and post-industrialized society.

The visitor is welcomed into the visually tactile experience of smart design, material awareness, social function, and then allowed a critical eye to view the objects that comfort, define, and challenge our society.

“Form follows imagination, and function is a script for where and how we interact with these creatures we live with.” – Vivian Beer, participating artist

- Joshua R. Smith, curator