Al Taylor: Wire Instruments and Pet Stains

Curated by Elsa Longhauser and Lisa Melandri

At last, a museum survey for Al Taylor, who has been largely—and criminally— overlooked in the United States. Though restricted to only two series (“Wire Instruments,” 1989–90, and “Pet Stains,” 1989–92), the exhibition will bring us some fifty works, including not only drawings but a number of objects the artist made from scavenged materials,constructions that were both inspired by and the subject of many works on paper. Taylor thought of his entire practice as a form of drawing—and of drawing, in turn, as a method for seeing. In these works, his rigorous devotion to process and form is poked and prodded by his sly, sometimes screwball wit, but is never undone. Although his lineage appears to include Duchamp, Rodchenko, and Twombly (a strange family indeed), Taylor clearly lives on his own rambunctious planet.