Nina Canell
Crash, 2023
crash cymbal, drain
50.8 x 50.8 cm
20 x 20 in
20 x 20 in
Nina Canell’s work spreads across time, forging material affinities as they meet, rustle or break down. Crash cymbals dented by rhythmic energy (whether of rain, heat or percussion) are transformed...
Nina Canell’s work spreads across time, forging material affinities as they meet, rustle or break down. Crash cymbals dented by rhythmic energy (whether of rain, heat or percussion) are transformed into sinkholes, resonating in myriad directions and evoking an oceanic feedback loop. A Silurian crinoid, having once fed by filtering marine detritus through its feathery tendrils, now nests into its modern anthropogenic analogue: a saturated mophead. The works overlap with each other as much as with the space around them, and the particulate pasts that reside within its concrete, steel, and glass. A scaffold, standing in for a missing load-bearing column, beckons dust with the electrostatic properties of ostrich feathers. Leaning against a wall, a bronze facsimile of a burled tree branch carries its former carbonic self as ashes within its bulbous interior. Like the pearl, these sculptures are assemblages that introduce new angles of mobility.