Dave Hardy

Dave Hardy’s polyurethane-foam constructions have important historical precursors ranging from the fairly well known—John Chamberlain’s hog-tied foam bundles of the late 1960s—to the more obscure—Claude van Lingen’s “Flexibles” series of the 1970s. Even so, Hardy’s deployment of his material is singular; he soaks his foam in concrete and then twists and folds it into improbable switchbacks and fleshlike extensions. During the curing process Hardy adds pencils, pretzels, panes of glass, vertical blinds, and simple wood constructions, pressing these materials into the slowly ossifying form. Thus, permanent depressions and distortions register the pressure, in a way that is not dissimilar to the performative syntax of some forms of dance, such as contact improv.

Often, this relationship is revealed through a sardonic, materials-based humor, as in Giza, 2017, a sculpture in which a knot of cemented foam caps three pieces of salvaged glass, one bearing the logo and lobby hours of a Chase Bank. If one looks closely, one can find a pencil that appears to support the weight of one of the leaning panes of glass on its eraser, which bends slightly under the pressure. In a wall-based work titled Blush, 2016, a thick pretzel-stick juts out like a phallus from the foam, exposed and vulnerable. It’s a funny kind of thing when you find yourself suddenly concerned for the structural integrity of a salty snack. I would hazard that this is Hardy’s endgame, to imbue industrial and depersonalized materials with corporeality, and to reactivate the stuff of everyday life—food, writing instruments, a tourist tchotchke, windows—as precarious supports.