Jessica Stockholder. Stuff Matters

Both the exhibition and the publication can be understood to revolve around the spirit of a recent series of Stockholder's works collectively titled Assists, sculptures that cannot remain upright without the support of another object (a 'prop') such as a desk or a refrigerator. One is greeted at the outset - both in the exhibition and in the publication - by Assist: Three squared @ half sca/e strapped to a stone sculpture (Holy Bishop, early sixteenth century, anonymous), part of the collection of the Centraal Museum. By way of analogy, the relationship between the Assist and the stone saint calls attention to how various parts of history and life are often interwoven contributing to the fabric of life as we know it. A web created by others props each of us up. None of us stands alone.