TEENSY WEENSY SOLO EXHIBITION: "Contact" by Martin Casuso

"Contact," by Martin Casuso's found table, mirror, metallic glazed ceramic vessels with cellulose flocked interiors

Last month, I went to see Of-Things-Being-What-They-Are-Not, Martin Casuso's multi-media exhibition at University of Miami Gallery's new home in the Wynwood Buiding.

Casuso has described his work as "an ongoing exploration of how gender, sexual preference, materials and processes relate to themes of domesticity." His exhibition contains crafts made by Casuso or "unseens hands of the past" combined with hardware supplies and thrift store housewares (including a pink decorative tissue box holder exactly like one my mother once owned).

Sometime I'm so busy looking at what's on the walls in a room, that I don't always notice what's in the middle, but "Contact," the piece that was more out in the middle of the room at Casuso's show, was pretty striking. Displayed like a low-to-the-ground table, it contained lots of bright red and shiny reflective metal.

"Contact" by Martin Casuso

There seemed to be something that set it apart from other works in the show, so much so that I wasn't sure at first that it was part of the exhibition. I found myself thinking about that work long after I left the show. On some level, it reminded me of a gorgeous garden of bright red flowers all reaching towards the sun ... or a densely populated landscape of giant red satellite dishes ... or lots of hungry mouths, like when you see birds in a nest waiting to be fed ... only the mouths are bigger and rounder.

I began to wonder what Casuso had in mind when he created the work, so I contacted him to see if he could provide some detail about "Contact," which he did. 

"In the case of the table piece I conjure a memory of high school, a boy I like squeezing behind me in the cafeteria, casually touching my bare elbow to make room to pass and the initial shock and them flush of warmth that ran through my body," Casuso explains. "But this kind of contact is not specific to me and I have heard so many entertaining interpretations of the piece. The bowls are cast from my elbow, sanded to remove details, glazed and then flocked."

Casuso says he enjoys hearing how others interpret the work, however "I have heard the bowls looked like, well, tea bowls and blood platelets and female body parts," he says. "I always want the work to be ambiguous enough for viewers to attach their own meaning to it."


To see more of Casuso's work, visit Martincasuso.com.

View more of Arterpillar's Teensy Weensy Solo Exhibitions.