Andromache 2019

Joseph Pace, who was born in 1959, made this sculpture called Andromache from, well, it looks like pretty much everything! The process seems to be one of accumulation, not unlike some kinds of drawing. You start with one mark, then another, then another... It's a way of building up, of making something emerge through repetition. The layering is so thick you lose the sense of a single object. It’s transformed into a landscape of textures and light. Look at the way the pearls cascade down the side. It's like a frozen waterfall, or maybe the tears of Andromache herself, forever caught in this shimmering, glittering form. It reminds me of Kurt Schwitters. He called his collages "merz" art, meaning, basically, junk art. There's something both precious and throwaway about it, which is so art. It’s not just about what things are, but what they could be, what they might mean.