His third solo show at moniquemeloche, Justin Cooper transforms the gallery with his sculptural installation Ooze, utilizing readily available materials such as PVC pipe and trash bags to create volumetric “drawings in space.” Fields, a new series of Cooper’s signature large-scale drawings, rounds out the installation.
The exhibition’s title is tactical, not descriptive, a playful primer for engagement with the work on view. The word “board” evokes the logic of the homophone, a linguistic term for a word pronounced the same as another but differing in meaning, despite differences in spelling. As Cooper explains, the word board, when spoken, has the “distinction of being simultaneously a noun, verb, and adjective. Each time the title is said aloud, the interlocutor must make a cognitive effort to distinguish whether it’s referring to a plank of wood, taking a seat on a vessel, or being in a state of disinterest. It could also refer to a panel of experts or trustees or directors.” By way of metaphor, the homophone logic alludes to the multivalence of Cooper’s sculptural, photographic, drawing, and performance practice, while stressing the possibility for seemingly distinct categories to simultaneously apply to it. Cooper’s work finds ways to be at once instinctual/ formal, physical/psychological, everyday/extraordinary, and mundane/otherworldly, occupying the overlap of a Venn diagram.
