Casey Curran's piece as part of the Forward series at Glass Box Gallery has presence. It's as if the slightly smaller than life-size figure—composed of crinkly gold reflective paper and some sort of wire or string—sitting at the desk is in the middle of contemplation. Or revelation. Those rays beaming down on it seem to think so. Or perhaps the figure is reacting to something in the parcel it's just received, which sits in front of it on the table.

The placard on the back wall says all of those things are kind of true. After reading a Tom Hennen poem in a box given to him at the beginning of this project, the poem led Curran to "a narrative vision: a drifter, contemplating the parcel, and considering stepping through that hole in the landscape." The sculpture reminds me of the "Ecstasy of Saint Teresa"-meets-the-alien-from-Annihilation-meets-Rodin's-"Thinker." All things I love.

This sculpture by Curran is part of Forward, an "annual, evolving exhibition series" curated by Shaun Kardinal in which artists transform another artist's work they have received, exhibit it, then pass it on to someone new to be reinterpreted again.

Curran transformed and built off artist Anthony White's PLA-stitched, folded up, Priority Mail envelope, which—in this iteration—is spray-painted gold. White in turn riffed off of the origin of the piece, artist and writer Tessa Hulls's postcard sculpture, which Curran has turned into a halo of sorts. It's a chain of inspiration made concrete in lineage.

"Part 3: Means" is the third iteration of the Forward series, debuting the second round of revisions. There are fourteen works by thirteen other artists like Mari Nagaoka, Markel Uriu, Barry Johnson and Rafael Soldi. The show is up rather briefly so you should run, not walk, to see it before it closes on August 17th. Glass Box Gallery hours through this time are Thurs-Sat, 12-5 p.m. Go!

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A post shared by Forward (@fwd_fwd_fwd) on Aug 2, 2019 at 11:46am PDT