I couple of weeks ago I got a report of a Wade Guyton in a sick crate at Matthew Marks. Seemingly cast metal, heavy-looking as hell, they seemed to sculptural—and, again, heavy—to be just actual crates.
And it turns out, they’re not. On 18 September Guyton talked with Hans Ulrich Obrist at the Beyeler, part of his show there this year. [The 1:1-scale editions are still available; turns out they didn’t all disappear during Art Basel after all.]
Anyway, about 42:00 in, after an extensive conversation about these bronze and aluminum cast tube sculptures Guyton is showing at Francesca Pia in Zurich—yikes, showed, in what turns out to be Pia’s final show—HUO suggested Wade might be open to even more sculpture, which led to the crates, which are, in fact, frames.
Guyton always hated giving suggestions for framing his canvas works, while acceding to the necessity to protect them. And because they always looked great in the crate, he made frames by having travel crates disassembled, cast, and then welded back together.
“Because” is doing a lot in that sentence, mostly misleading. Because there is absolutely no logical, causal flow from “looks great in the crate” to “cast meticulous, bespoke crates from aluminum.” That is entirely artist logic. And it’s absolutely perfect.
For two whole years, it really seemed like the only way to show a Guyton was on a sweat shop clothing rack. Suddenly it feels weird if you don’t have it in one of these hulking crate frames. Wade first showed the crate/frames last winter in Gisela Capitan’s little storefront space in Cologne, but maybe Marks will be supplying them, now, too, just in time for Christmas.