Page 18 - Art at Mayfair Tunneln

Dan Mandelbaum: Spectral Cat, 2017. Ceramics, 30 x 30 x 15 cm.
Dan Mandelbaum’s ceramic sculptures look like objects, found on the bottom of the ocean or in otherworldly spheres. Their shapes are caught in the spectrum between the organic and figurative where the clay sometimes takes form as something familiar and at other times remain mystical compositions which cannot be decoded. The work Spectral Cat takes shape as such knotted entan- glements which is not just a result of the artist’s immediate and open approach to the material but also a certain sense of how the material sculpture can be formed in a manner so that it at the same time addresses and estranges its viewer. As the title of the artwork suggests, there is a figuration in the ceramic work, but this is dissolved in the clay and its abstract qualities. In this way, there is both something constructive and eroding in Mandelbaum’s works where the clay as material becomes the measure of which an investigation into and challenge of the real and alienated can take place.
Dan Mandelbaum (1994, US) graduated from Pratt Institute in 2016. He lives and works in Brook-lyn, New York. He has exhibited his works at V1 Gallery, DK; Antenna, US; Calico Brooklyn, US, and Marvin Gardens, US.
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