Rochelle Goldberg: gatekeepers

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Rochelle Goldberg, "gatekeepers," 2019

Rochelle Goldberg gatekeepers

The opening reception is Saturday, May 25, 2–6pm

They’ve dropped a seed to watch it grow 

Its growing at every cost

And still it breathes within this body

Because the failure of an organ, even if inherited, like an inherited condition, means the whole system has to work harder, to pump it out of collapse, to pump for the sake of its pumping

The whole system will have to start again

May endless industry keep your fields green and in return you shall produce food and and flax in abundance

Growing and growing and growing and growing and growing 

And an absent fire still fuels the first century, in the first cave, in the first dwelling, in the first room with four pillars, then four corners, this passage protected like the branch in the semi-desert not consumed by the flame

Rochelle Goldberg’s (b. 1984, Vancouver; lives/works: New York) sculpture and installation asks how we can extrapolate beyond the assumed boundaries between living entities and objects. In her work, the material and conceptual distinctions between natural systems and the built environment collapse, synthesize and reform. Goldberg’s notion of ‘intraction’ represents an in-between space, where the boundary between one entity and another is destabilized, and where the remains of encounters between multiple material and conceptual realities are articulated. Summoning historical, ecological, religious and poetic subjects, the range of her articulations has comprised ceramics, invertebrate shells, steel, celery roots, gold, carpets, chia seeds, Mary Magdalene, Mary of Egypt, brass, bronze, fish skeletons, plastics, polished metals, human hair, steam trains, pelicans, burnt matches, electrical switches, crocodile and snake skins, fibre optic light strands, and crude oil.