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CHAKAIA BOOKER: EMPTY SEAT
November 1 - December 21, 2024 -
"FINDING BEAUTY IS FUNDAMENTAL TO OUR COLLECTIVE EXPERIENCE. SOMETIMES IT’S A POETIC PROCESS, SOMETIMES IT IS MORE SPECIFIC AND DIRECT. IT IS WHAT I DO. IT IS SIMPLY WHO I AM."
Chakaia Booker is one of the foremost sculptors of her generation. For over four decades, Booker has masterfully manipulated the rubber tire into forms previously unimaginable. In doing so she elevates the material to new heights, showcasing her distinct ability in sculptures ranging from the petite to the monumental. Booker, who has referred to herself not only as an abstract and conceptual artist but as a “narrative environmental sculptor,” embeds the tire with profound meaning, speaking to issues of environmental destruction, socioeconomic disparity, and the exploitation of labor. In working with repurposed materials, Booker also brings the history of the original maker and the consumer’s personal use to the viewer, and the audience can choose if or how it becomes a part of their experience of the work. Booker consciously incorporates tires that show the wear and tear of use, encompassing that individual’s history of movement and the traces of their life.
Booker’s work is in more than 40 public collections, including the Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York, NY; National Gallery of Art, Washington, D.C.; High Museum of Art, Atlanta, GA; Storm King Art Center, Mountainville, NY; Library of Congress, Washington, D.C.; and the Whitney Museum of Art, New York, NY, among others. Booker’s recent exhibitions include Public Opinion at David Nolan Gallery (May 5-July 20, 2023); The Observance, a retrospective at The Institute of Contemporary Art in Miami, FL; the 2023 Thailand Biennale, Chiang Rai; and Against the Day: Chakaia Booker & Carol Rama at Galerie Isabella Bortolozzi, Berlin (February 14, 2023-March 25, 2023).
Chakaia Booker: Empty Seat highlights a select group of works by the artist spanning from 1996 to 2021. United in their versatility, each sculpture explores a slightly different angle of the artist’s production. While Booker’s medium remains the same within the exhibited group, each work represents a different solution to Booker’s wrestling with the innate challenges of working with rubber tire. Their dimensions, technique, and method of display all radically differ, demonstrating Booker’s artistic breadth. This exhibition is a rare opportunity to encounter the full range of Booker’s use of gesture, material, and scale.
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Empty Seat (2006) is grand and theatrical compared to the restrained solemnity of Booker's untitled wall sculpture from 1996. While the shapes and undulations of the earlier piece seem to be drawn with a sharp pencil and are contained whithin the boundaries of the wooden frame, Empty Seat explodes with movement and chaos, like an untamed wilderness. Empty Seat can be displayed either outdoors or indoors, further highlighting the singularity of Booker’s medium.
The tendrils cascading from Strayed (2019) make the tough, thick material of the rubber tire appear delicate and fragile. Bottom Half (2008) has a zoomorphic quality; it almost seems like a sea urchin, a living thing pulled from a heap of discarded tires. While the former balances a contained center framed by unconstrained ribbons of tire, the latter assumes a similar visual starting point with only minor deviations from its constricted center. In this way, Bottom Half is perhaps more comparable to 1996's untitled work in its tightness, size comparisons aside. Each possible permutation of sculptural duo in Chakaia Booker: Empty Seat allows for a rich visual debate.
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When asked why tires became her principal medium, Booker said, "the tires were always there, they were abundant. I liked how they could be adapted, how I could make different shapes out of them, how they could be brought indoors, and how I could bring them back outdoors. Rubber is primary for me; I process and construct it in new ways. I see tires as more monumental, more sculptural, more archeological than other materials I use."
Booker also likened tire elements to the notion of cultural diversity: "My work challenges preconceived notions that tires are uniformly black. I want to encourage people to examine assumptions about color, patterns, textures, and functions…Also our assumptions about most subject matter, including people, their diversity, and the diversity of ideas and perceptions. Class and its components: race, gender and labor are issues faced by all cultures. These are universal issues and cultural diversity is suggested by tire elements."
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