“Phoebe Washburn,” Flash Art International 37:239 (December 2004).
Phoebe Washburn, “Nothing’s Cutie” LFL Gallery. September 2 to October 2, 2004.
Reviewed by Melissa Pearl Friedling
For Phoebe Washburn’s second solo show at LFL gallery, the artist has created another site-specific assemblage titled Nothing's Cutie. This time around, the materials she uses seem an homage to Home Depot and Staples (cut prepared lumber, pencils, packing tape, thumb tacks, wood screws) organized organically in undulating stacked and tacked bundles.
Ms. Washburn wryly welcomes the viewer to enter the inner room of her fortress with a “hello” spelled out in orange masking tape on the visible underneaths of suspended folding tables that form a precarious ceiling to the cavernous anti-chamber. The work opens up onto more waves and walls of cut pastel-painted wood surrounding a sawdust centerpiece, inviting the viewer to imagine either a massive overbuilt city-scape in miniature, or a fantastic-voyage-like macro-version of some atom-sized hidden world.
The space-filling sculpture recalls work of Sarah Sze (but less meticulous), Thomas Hirschhorn (but more stable) and Jason Rhoades (but less language-based). The piece is mesmerizingly beautiful, to be sure, but the choice of materials seems more arbitrary and less socially invested than the discarded and retrieved boxes used for her last effort at the same gallery. Nevertheless, Ms. Washburn’s creative and critical promise is palpable in this newest work.