Adam Milner Takes Care of the Details | Art21 "New York Close Up"

Рет қаралды 13,984

2 жыл бұрын

What can the little things tell us about the big things?
From flower petals to eyelashes, plastic gemstones, a friend’s hair or Babybel cheese wax casing, artist Adam Milner mixes and matches a range of overlooked, but deeply resonant objects into artworks that explore our often fraught relationships with the things that fill our lives. Identifying as a collector and arranger of objects, Milner works primarily at home in Brooklyn, New York, intentionally intermingling the creative process with the items, spaces, and rituals of domestic private life. Self-consciously working against the grain of popular home decor shows like "Tidying Up with Marie Kondo" and "Hoarders" and their stigmatization of household objects, Milner says, "A lot of these philosophies are about getting rid of things, but I'm really interested in this idea of vibrant matter…that everything is active and when we're done with something, it still exists in the world."
As part of the artist’s regular practice, Milner visits a neighborhood thrift shop and The Metropolitan Museum of Art, observing the varying levels of care and categorization each space brings to its objects. Artworks and functional items are sold side by side at the thrift shop, their cultural and economic distinctions flattened in a cozy sprawl. The museum attempts to create a more idealized theatre of display, carefully highlighting rare individual works, but disappearing the brackets and hardware that uphold them. For Milner, the jump from home to retail space to curated museum is an on-going lesson in the malleability of cultural values and hierarchies.
For the 2021 exhibition "Public Sculptures," produced through the nomadic museum Black Cube, Milner draws upon these lessons and creates new contexts for audiences to access and understand art. The artist installs carefully calibrated sculptures-a conch shell with a metal filled interior and a tableaux of costumed deer figurines-in public spaces like a neighborhood bodega and friend’s car. "Everything is porous and everything is always absorbing the thing next to it," says Milner. "If it’s confusing where things begin and end, it’s a lot harder to divide and segment. I’m always trying to resist the clean category."
Adam Milner (b. 1988, Denver, Colorado, USA) lives and works in Brooklyn, New York. Learn more about the artist at: art21.org/artist/adam-milner/
CREDITS | "New York Close Up" Series Producer: Nick Ravich. Director & Producer: Lorena Alvarado. Editor: Lorena Alvarado. Cinematography: Demi Waldron. Additional Camera: Sean Hanley. Sound: Mariya Chulichkova. Sound Design & Mix: Gisela Fullà-Silvestre. Color Correction: Addison Post. Design & Graphics: Chips. Music: Cloud and Raw Paws. Artwork Courtesy: Adam Milner. Thanks: Black Cube, Hannah James, Alexandra Kozlakowski, Restoration Worship Temple, Second-hand Shop, Rebecca Schear, Cortney Lane Stell, The Metropolitan Museum of Art, and Two Ways Supermarket. © Art21, Inc. 2021. All rights reserved.
"New York Close Up" is supported by The Andy Warhol Foundation for the Arts; and, in part, by public funds from the New York City Department of Cultural Affairs in partnership with the City Council; Dawn and Chris Fleischner; and by individual contributors.
Digital exhibition of "New York Close Up" films is made possible in part by the New York State Council on the Arts.
TRANSLATIONS
Translated subtitles are generously contributed by our volunteer translation community. Visit our translation team at Amara for the full list of contributors:
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Пікірлер: 15

@art21org 2 жыл бұрын

Adam Milner is one of four featured artists in our summer 2021 season. See the season film guide at: art21.org/2021/07/07/four-new-films-for-summer-2021/

@Work_in_progress88 2 жыл бұрын

Adam - I love how you said that 'everything is porous' and absorbing the things next to it :) Love your work. You are a kindred spirit

@braulioguerra6258 2 жыл бұрын

i love how how he chooses where to place the artwork

@erincarr9411 2 жыл бұрын

I want to be friends with this human. I understand this need for arrangement.

@BrianHutzellMusic 2 жыл бұрын

This is excellent! It made me think of two works by Mags Harries: “Glove Cycle” in Cambridge, MA in the Porter Square T station, and “Asaroton,” embedded in a walkway near Boston’s Haymarket. Also, the way Adam scours thrift stores reminded me of Nick Cave shopping for objects to put in his “Rescue” sculptures.

@joshporter5205 2 жыл бұрын

I love the glove cycle. She was my adviser for a couple minutes years ago at SMFA. I kinda wish I had taken more advantage of her being there given how I'm now getting more interested in sculptural objects.

@abbihurst2627 2 жыл бұрын

Ive never encountered an artist who embodied what I have been trying to find in my art in the way that he does i am weeping

@joannekucks4343 2 жыл бұрын

OMG. I things and collect many kids of things. I am a collector/hoarder but it has filled my condo. Now is the time to clear out a bit. Objects have life to them and they speak to me as they do to you. I always think of the work that went into designing and making the mundane objects in our everyday lives even the stuff we throw away. You and I would have a lot to talk about over coffee! I grew up In Middlesex NJ and now live in Minneapolis. I collect all the music and memorabilia of the band The Moody Blues (have met them several times and working on a book price guide of their stuff). I do arts and crafts as well and have jars of beads and ephemera for future jewelry. I loved the peek into your collection. Wish it longer than 8:30. 🥰🦋🐞🐝🌻