There’s no denying buttons are a vital component of clothing – but can they rise to the level of art? A new exhibition in New York aims to prove they can.
Eleven artists have used the everyday, mundane objects to create sculptures, portraits and amazing wearable art – political, personal or whimsical.
Each artist is "pushing buttons" beyond their normal use, reimagining and repurposing them as an artistic medium in contemporary art, says Peter "Souleo" Wright, curator of The Button Show at Rush Arts Gallery in Manhattan's Chelsea.
“What I tried to do with this show was look at artists who were elevating that level of craft and making polished, well-executed works that can stand next to a painting ... because of the amount of detail and precision in the work.”
In A Harlem Hangover, Beau McCall simulates a spilt wine bottle. It lies on its side on a high pedestal and a long ribbon of buttons cascades into a pool of ruby-red buttons on the floor.
The Harlem artist’s technique involves lining his object with an identical button and then adding a second layer of buttons of varying shapes, sizes and texture for a three-dimensional effect. The stitching that holds them together becomes an integral part of his design.
In another of the artist’s pieces, a school desk becomes a statement about his childhood Catholic-school experience, where the punishments were physical and doled out with a ruler. He has covered the surface entirely in wood-tone buttons, with wads of “gum” (piles of pink buttons) stuck to the underside. Several dark-coloured buttons start to spell out the alphabet, but abruptly end in a sassy – and unprintable – phrase. “The school chair is my site of pain, reflection, healing and holy revenge,” says McCall.
A bullseye made of yardsticks and rulers appears above the desk, decorated with letter buttons that spell out phrases such as “what goes on in class, stays in class”.
For San Francisco-based artist Lisa Kokin, buttons are highly personal. When her father, an upholsterer, died in 2001, she created a portrait of him made entirely from of buttons. Until then, they had made only cameos in her largely textile-based works.
The memorial to her father led to other button portraits, including those of activists Rosa Parks and Cesar Chavez. For her sculptures, including a bust of her pet dog, Chico, that is in the show, she builds a chicken-wire structure that she covers in an assortment of old and new buttons. A lacy-like stitch ties them together, adding texture and transparency.
“Every button is stitched to its neighbour to form a low-tech, pixilated composition,” she says. “The further back one stands, the more decipherable the image becomes. It is as though I am painting with buttons.”
Other artists use buttons as embellishments. Artist Amalia Amaki, from Tuscaloosa, Alabama, uses them in her work with old photographs, while Los Angeles artist Camilla Taylor applies them to a trio of large otherworldly headless creatures with spindly legs.
The exhibition, which runs until March 12, is presented by the Rush Philanthropic Arts Foundation, which was founded in 1995 by hip-hop producer Russell Simmons and his brothers Danny and Joseph “Rev Run” Simmons.
