ART-PRESENTATION: Haim Steinbach-Jaws

Haim Steinbach, jaws, Installation view, White Cube London, © Haim Steinbach, Photo © White Cube (George Darrell)For more than 40 years, Haim Steinbach has explored the psychological, aesthetic, cultural and ritualistic aspects of collecting and arranging already existing objects, displayed on shelves of his own design. His work engages the concept of “display” as a form that foregrounds objects, raising consciousness of the play of presentation.

By Efi Michalarou
Photo: White Cube Gallery Archive

The shelf has been present as a structuring method in Steinbach’s work from the late ‘70s onwards. Steinbach sees it as a “Device for visualising the organisation and distribution of objects”.  In his  solo exhibition “jaws”, is on presentation a new series of shelf works as well as the major installation “Display #15 – Design for a Yogurt Bar”, (1981), which has been reconfigured for White Cube Gallery space. The artist often re-contextualises his earlier displays to adapt them to new sets of spatial and social conditions. In his practice, objects are ciphers, each with their own particular identity, story or history, whose meanings and associations rely on the “Contingency of their placement”, always subject to change.  The installation “Display #15 – Design for a Yogurt Bar” spans the entire lower level of the gallery space, it was originally realised for Berkshire Community College, in Pittsfield, Massachusetts. The installation includes a spray painted wall and a handcrafted shelf on which sits a group of objects: a wooden doll’s chair, a potted flower, and a Moroccan coffee pot. The title of the work not only points to the rise of the frozen yogurt bar during the 1980s, but also to the cultural transformation of yogurt itself, once a foodstuff primarily consumed by near-Eastern immigrant communities, now an ubiquitous, readily available supermarket product. Constructing an intimate space, the display evokes a feeling of ambiguous domesticity, enhanced by its striking ‘graffiti’ wall painting, whose design was taken from Häagen-Dazs ice cream pots, adding complexity to the relationship between object/architecture/artwork/viewer. The historically specific model of health and leisure that “Display #15 – Design for a Yogurt Bar” alludes to is continued in Steinbach’s new series of shelf works, which present numerous surfboard fins in different shapes and colors  in juxtaposition with other objects. Placed on shelves made of conjoined parts, these upright surfboard fins recall those of a shark, syncopating a cultural archetype of surf and beach culture with a reflection of our primal fears, two thematic strands evoked in Spielberg’s film “Jaws” 1975). In “Untitled (fins, dolphin, sea horse)”, for example, several fins in various shades of white to black are presented next to a dolphin and a seahorse, while in another work, a single blue fin appears like a full stop after a series of objects placed in a line. Like words in a sentence, these objects engender a flow of metonymic associations, highlighting the fundamental role of context and repetition within the artist’s practice.

Info: White Cube Gallery, 25-26 Mason’s Yard, London, Duration: 27/10/17-20/1/18, Days & Hours: Tue-Sat 10:00-18:00, http://whitecube.com

Haim Steinbach, Untitled (fins, dolphin, sea horse) 2017, Plastic laminated wood shelf; 5 George Greenough Design fiberglass surfboard fins; Jamaican, hand carved wooden dolphin sculpture by Ziggy; Jamaican, hand carved wooden sea horse by John Wayne, 76.8 x 179.1 x 34.3 cm, © Haim Steinbach. Photo © White Cube (Christopher Burke)
Haim Steinbach, Untitled (fins, dolphin, sea horse) 2017, Plastic laminated wood shelf; 5 George Greenough Design fiberglass surfboard fins; Jamaican, hand carved wooden dolphin sculpture by Ziggy; Jamaican, hand carved wooden sea horse by John Wayne, 76.8 x 179.1 x 34.3 cm, © Haim Steinbach, Photo © White Cube (Christopher Burke)

 

 

Haim Steinbach, Untitled (2 kongs, 2 fins) 2017, Plastic laminated wood shelf; Norm Flex fiberglass surfboard fin; George Greenough Design fiberglass surfboard fin; 2 Kong rubber dog chews, 66.7 x 170.8 x 34.3 cm, © Haim Steinbach. Photo © White Cube (Christopher Burke)
Haim Steinbach, Untitled (2 kongs, 2 fins) 2017, Plastic laminated wood shelf; Norm Flex fiberglass surfboard fin; George Greenough Design fiberglass surfboard fin; 2 Kong rubber dog chews, 66.7 x 170.8 x 34.3 cm, © Haim Steinbach, Photo © White Cube (Christopher Burke)

 

 

Haim Steinbach, Untitled (kongs, bear, cage, darners, fin) 2017, Plastic laminated wood, shelf; Kong rubber dog chews; solar powered, plastic bear figurine; metal cage; wooden sock darners; Smith/Parrish fiberglass surfboard fin, 61.6 x 188.6 x 34.3 cm, © Haim Steinbach. Photo © White Cube (Christopher Burke)
Haim Steinbach, Untitled (kongs, bear, cage, darners, fin) 2017, Plastic laminated wood, shelf; Kong rubber dog chews; solar powered, plastic bear figurine; metal cage; wooden sock darners; Smith/Parrish fiberglass surfboard fin, 61.6 x 188.6 x 34.3 cm, © Haim Steinbach, Photo © White Cube (Christopher Burke)

 

 

Haim Steinbach, jaws, Installation view, White Cube London, © Haim Steinbach, Photo © White Cube (George Darrell)
Haim Steinbach, jaws, Installation view, White Cube London, © Haim Steinbach, Photo © White Cube (George Darrell)

 

 

Haim Steinbach, jaws, Installation view, White Cube London, © Haim Steinbach, Photo © White Cube (George Darrell)
Haim Steinbach, jaws, Installation view, White Cube London, © Haim Steinbach, Photo © White Cube (George Darrell)