In July and August 2015 Proxy Gallery presents “Countless Grey”, a solo project by Los Angeles-based Sweet Samson. The installation consists of round coin-sized pieces of carbon fiber in different greys attached to all five surfaces of the all-white Proxy.

​The installation presents a seemingly paradoxical combination: On the one hand the tenets of classic minimalism call for formal abstraction and industrial materials devoid of subjective emotion. On the other hand Samson inserts into this equation childhood memories of playing with Rubble coins in her native Russia. The carbon fiber, or anthracite, relates to rubbings of coins made with graphite, and the sizes of the little disks are anchored in the size of Russian and American coins.

“Proxy” becomes both the interior space of memories and simultaneously an exhibiting space and physical supportive structure for the work, while the monetary face value of the coins completely recedes from the picture. In this way the installation aspires to disturb our assumption that formalism and autobiography are incompatible.