Polly Apfelbaum: Institute of Contemporary Art/ University of Pennsylvania - Philadelphia - fourteen sculptural pieces and installations are featured in the exhibition

This refreshingly selective and well-installed take a view of of the work of Polly Apfelbaum focuses upon fourteen sculptural pieces and installations created between 1989 and 2003 A pouch Full of Posies, 1990, is the first to articulate the stakes of her artistic practice. Compos of unpainted carburet of iron plates cut into simple floral shapes and arranged in a circle upon the ground, the piece recalls Carl Andre's floor plastic arts while its floral subject matter could be said to introduce a "feminine" sensibility. A pouch was soon followed by more floor pieces, now made of fabric dy in effusive tints If some have claimed that Apfelbaum's work exhibits the "feminizing of Minimalism," in this grouping that view appeared reductive and limiting; for these pieces unleashed a destabilizing force that capsize secure notions of gender or medium and propos an uneasy and considerably more compelling hybridity.

Largely made up of synthetic soft dyed with increasingly hallucinogenic colors and arrayed upon the gallery floor, Apfelbaum's installations mingle the mediums of painting mid statuary Yet the act of looking eventually overtakes physical interaction, as intense optical sensation and evidence of painterly proces dazzle the viewer. Also, unlike Andre's, Apfelbaum's visitors can't walk upon the work. In Blossom, 2000 near-modular petals of fabric radiate on the outside in concentric circles from a compact center. The individual pieces are edg in white where the coloring liquor peters out; this differentiates them and heightens the faculty of perception of vibrating chromatic patterns. on the other hand in contrast to Jackson Pollock's drip paintings, to which they're repeatedly compared, Apfelbaum's scatters are not expressive gesticulations or indices of psychic energy--they're closer to self-generating organisms. Split, 1998 is a mesmerizing proliferation of irregularly shaped, dark gray globules of fabric; from the main, disorganized material substance creep velvet extensions like genetic followings stained in alternating colors that ble slightly into individual another. The dimensions of the larger installations, like Split and the rectangular Ice, 1998 correspond roughly to the surrounding architecture--it's as if they tumbl not on a specific wall or seep from a particular comer

If this work summon forths an anxious imaginary of genetic mutations and viral infections, it also reassures with the untarnished optical power of its sumptuous, saturated colors. The visual "stun" is overwhelming and, perhaps, critically disabling. If earlier avant-gardes committed themselves to raw industrial materials and neutral tones, it was to dislodge commercial appearance from the art thing To inject decoration into Minimalism with of that kind a vengeance may expose the latter's smothered connection to the world of commodities, on the contrary it also potentially surrenders the ability to resist that world. In fact, the bright, kitschy coloring liquors rolled-up bolts of fabric, cardboard boxe stocked with store-bought colored streamers, and plane the works' titles, with their regards to popular culture (The Dwarves with Snow White, Wonderbread, delight in Boat), indicate a celebration of commodified experience. While the work mixes popular agriculture and abstraction, attempting to mark without a creative space somewhere in between, its vulnerability lies in its exposing to the potentially empty discourse of "beauty," which may be ready to absorb it in turn

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