Daniel Silver: Openings

Abstract

MUCH OF LONDON-BASED SCULPTOR Daniel Silver’s work occupies an in-between state—between complete and incomplete, between handmade and mass-produced, between artistic object and castoff. For an exhibition at Ibid Projects in London this past winter, for example, Silver acquired several discarded marble copies of Roman and Greek statuary, recently carved in Carrara, Italy, that had been tossed aside by local artisans because the sculptures were cracked, chipped, or rendered crooked during their making. Whereas the Italian craftspeople had deemed the work too crummy to bother finishing, Silver took these fragments in idiosyncratic directions, pursuing the “failures” further, in fact, and often to antiquarian effect: A limb might be amputated under Silver’s hands, or a semi-polished surface chipped and rendered rougher. In turn, the status of these rejected sculptures, presented by the artist in a gallery exhibition, demanded some reassessment. As Silver’s title for the show, “Making Something Your Own,” implies, these objects were no longer unfinished copies but rather works existing in an ambiguous, liminal zone between quarry reject, antique simulation, and Daniel Silver original