Art House and Beth Achenbach Kick Off Pride Month With a Crush
But take that same can, pinch it, flatten it, and run it over a few times, and it comes to life. The aluminum shell crinkles into hundreds of mini-surfaces, each one cupping the light and casting tiny shadows. Little bits of metal fray and twist. The paint peels. The graphic design warps. The skin of the can becomes a relief map: a topographical representation of urban trauma. Stuck on the sidewalk or in the middle of the road, it’s got a story to tell — even if nobody is listening.
Well, Beth Achenbach is listening. The Jersey City artist has an eye for peculiar objects and some mischievous ideas about how they might be isolated, photographed, and presented in a manner that brings out their recalcitrant personalities. In the “Thaw” series that she presented at LITM in the antediluvian, pre-pandemic era of local art, she submerged toys in blocks of ice and shot them in a state of cryogenic suspension. In “Crushed,” cleverly curated by Andrea McKenna at Art House Productions (345 Marin Blvd.), Achenbach gives us aluminum cans steamrolled by the days and sandblasted by the elements. She’s photographed them, peeled them from their unfortunate context, centered them, blown them up and magnified their scars, and framed them in interplanetary black. You could think of it as still life with soda pop: a startling depiction of deterioration that doubles as proof of resilience.
Thus it’s an appropriate way for Art House to open its Pride Month activities. Non-straight people hardly have a monopoly on stress, but those of us who’ve had to contort and flatten ourselves to fit properly in mainstream society do carry certain common wounds. Achenbach’s cans rolled off the assembly line in perfect conformity with brand standard, but look at them now: individualized and thoroughly bent by hard contact with the city. Has this mangling — the imprint of singular stories on their aluminum skins — beautified them? Has it ennobled that which the functional world calls trash? That’s in the eye of the beholder, but it’s pretty clear what Beth Achenbach thinks.
Click here for the full JC Times article by Tris McCall