In a gesture that inverts the usual relation between container and content, artist Taylor Tschider is exhibiting the gallery that is supposed to contain his work. He is showing a custom-fabricated box the shape and scale of the Proxy (but rotated 45°) crafted by removing a 1/2” wide, 12” deep cubic trough of dirt from the ground. The void then had to be back-filled with a polyurethane solution, which adhered itself to the dirt walls of the “empty” mold. Thus, an excavationary process took place, where the excess soil surrounding and housed within the interior of the polyurethane was removed.

By way of the methodical nature of its removal, this process articulates a certain anthropological endeavor as a way of “mining” for the finished sculpture. It is a way of implying that the sculpture pre-exists its discovery-thus making the sculpture a found or discovered object. Tschider’s excavation deftly takes on the weighty art historical notion of “the cube” as well as responding to the grand posturing of the earthworks movement of the 70’s. Incorporating natural materials into the process places the work within a geological/historical framework where layers of dirt and rock are the only “true” record of history.

In his recent work, Tschider painstakingly created seemingly “natural” assemblages of sticks and earth out of entirely fabricated materials. Here, the artist has subverted and reversed his own process by placing synthetic material into the dirt and allowing the earthen elements to establish and dictate their own formal language. Employing artificial means to engage with something natural is not only at the core art-making process but speaks to larger issues outside the gallery.