Exhibition Description

 

Alberte Tranberg
Turning the First Sod
June 1 – July 6, 2019

View images of the exhibition

Simone DeSousa Gallery is pleased to present Turning the First Sod, a solo exhibition installation of sculptural work by Alberte Tranberg. Speaking to ubiquitous elements from the interior of a home, and referencing the architectural phrase Turning the First Sod—when work begins on the creation of a new structure—the installation investigates how one can identify the parts of what constitutes a home: is it the person, objects, or structures that create it? Or perhaps something else?

“I am interested in the tactile surfaces we encounter in our daily lives, as I believe we mirror the behaviourism of our surroundings. By re-creating objects in performative scenarios as abstracted three dimensional still lifes, I hope to inspire alternative narratives of our habitual living, or at least some questioning thereof. In creating intimate spaces through installations that quote the built environment, I stretch the notion of the conditioned individual as one relates to interior settings.”
Before moving to the US to attend the Cranbrook Academy of Art, Alberte Tranberg worked in Copenhagen, Denmark, as a metal worker at a water treatment plant, an experience that has informed her current artistic practice in both labor and craft. Tranberg received an MFA in Metalsmithing from the Cranbrook Academy of Art in 2018. During her time at Cranbrook, Tranberg developed a language of works on the familiarity of objects and textures of the domestic environment, playing with our expectations of the functionality of their use and architectural theory.

Turning the First Sod is made possible with support by the Danish Arts Foundation and Merchant L. F. Foghts Fund, and is on view from June 1 through July 6, 2019.