A Line, A Mollusk
2021
Marissa Lee Benedict and David Rueter
Installation view at ︎︎︎Ditch Projects.
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The given elements of the exhibition are: a roughly square gallery space with a garage door (approximately 34’ x 38’ feet, or around 1500 square feet, of floor space, with an estimated 24’ maximum ceiling height with an estimated 30 degree slope); and fluorescent lights. Within the exhibition space are a small sculptural installation and drawings.
The drawings are produced by machine and by hand. They are executed with fine pen on absorptive mixed media paper, or on Rite in the Rain waxed or PET paper with layers of water, calcium carbonate, and oil based materials. Some are partially enclosed or mounted on panel. All are open to the air.
The drawings address conditions more than subjects. They refer to visual rhetorics and material grammars of enclosure, from cadastral systems, fortifications, accident theory, industrial process flow, hardware and software architectures, and blueprints (for a garage). The drawings are intimate with the violence of the lines that shape them. Some are chalky, and some are chalked. A few of the drawings are fugitive. The drawings work within, against, and through written logics of encapsulation and permeability. The drawings are inscriptions. The drawings are containers.