Polly Apfelbaum

So I've been really into the idea of working with textiles lately.  The tactile and sensual appeal of a cloth is so intriguing.  The textural possibilities of the material allow the view to engage a second or third sense...even if they are not literally allowed to touch.

I came across Poly Apfelbaum's work and immediately was drawn to her velvet horizontal floor sculptures, or as she terms them, "fallen sculptures".


Blossom 2000. Synthetic velvet and fabric dye, approximately 18' (548.6 cm) in diameter.

The sculpture was inspired by the "Powerpuff Girls" cartoon, and the read-headed, pink-eyed leader of the trio called Blossom. 





Funkytown 2012 Dye, synthetic fabric 324'x177'





Las Vegas 2009 cut sequined fabric



I'll talk about the first piece, since I somehow like it best. The colors in the velvet are spectacular!  What looks to be hundreds of sheets of velvet are arranged in a circular pattern on the museum floor.  The pieces of fabric are overlapping, forming a kind of chain mail effect.  Each next layer of builds upon the first and shifts into the next color family.  The center of the circle is yellow and it shifts to red, pink, purple, blue, etc.  at first I thought the piece would be stitched together, but now as I look at it I'm not so sure that it is a sculpture made up of many individual pieces that are arranged by poly upon arrival to the space.

The piece is about a cartoon and girl power, but I really see a grandmother afghan or even a doily.  Either way I think it is one of those visually striking pieces that does not rely too heavily on conceptualization to make it interesting.


Here is Poly's artist statement that helps to understand her work:

Polly Apfelbaum's work operates most poignantly in its overt physicality, excessive beauty and hyper-sensuality, as well as through the manner in which it evokes emotional sensation. Her work is also strongly influenced by fashion colors and design, in the sense that they are unnatural, man-made and synthetic. It is at once trippy and hallucinogenic, with its strong sense of spectacle and explosion, and yet strangely hypnotic and calming with the central force pulling the viewer into a rainbow of saturated color. Apfelbaum describes her work as, "...hybrid works, poised between painting and sculpture; works not so much attempting to invent new categories but working promiscuously and improperly -poaching - in fields seemingly already well defined."