Nord Wennerstrom on Ivan Navarro and Courtney Smith
Sculptors Ivan Navarro (who also works in video) and Courtney Smith reconfigure common items—lightbulbs, usually fluorescent, in Navarro’s case and vintage furniture in Smith’s—to yield subtly totemic, mildly anarchistic structures that gingerly probe the border between useful and useless, order and disorder. Their joint exhibition “Remake” furthered their inquisitions, playing with the cultural values we assign to objects and historical events and examining the consequences of reuse.Smith’s manipulated vintage dressers, bureaus, and cabinets recall the works of Doris Salcedo as well as, in
Sculptors Ivan Navarro (who also works in video) and Courtney Smith reconfigure common items—lightbulbs, usually fluorescent, in Navarro's case and vintage ...