Mindy Shapero

Mindy Shapero, "What it looks like on the outside when you are trying not to see the insides leaving again and again", 2011 via Marianne Boesky Gallery

The title of Mindy Shapero’s exhibit Breaking Open The Head is both a reference to Daniel Pinchbeck’s book on psychedelic shamanism, and a literal description of some of her work. The show centers around three shell-like sculptures of giant hollow heads. At first glance the forms appear amorphous. The first major sculpture is a black head tipped on its side to reveal pieces of matching black paper precisely arranged into swirls. The matte sheen and seductive fur-like effect of this painstaking embellishment completely distract from the subsequently obvious head form.

On an upward facing head, she paints paper cutouts black, leaving white at the edges. The surface appears white, but as the viewer walks past the head, a black void between the sheets adds an ambiguous visual and symbolic depth to the piece.

On the third head, she paints the face with solid gold leaf while the inside reveals multi-colored concentric circles, organic and irregular like growth rings of a tree. Other sculptures continue the head motif. A series of facial profiles are drawn out of bent metal rods and arranged around a multicolor paper form that slowly reveals itself to be a continuation of the silhouette, giving the illusion of a spinning movement. In another piece, the roles are reversed. The backs of heads are drawn out of the rods while the facial silhouette is completed by a single paper form in the center, like a Rubin vase.

Shapero uses extreme absence and presence of space and color to thoughtfully defy expectations. She baits us with her stunning craftsmanship to distract from her basic forms. When the two are realized at once, her rich perspective on mental tangibility and intangibility emerges throughout her body of work.

See Breaking Open The Head at Marianne Boesky Gallery in Chelsea until October 22nd.