SCULPTURES
Apfelbaum, Polly
U.S. (1955 - )
Flying Hearts
1999
Dyed velvet
10 x 18 feet (3.05 x 5.49 m) overall, varies with installation
Gift of the American Academy of Arts and Letters, New York; Sculpture Purchase Funds, 2002, Anonymous Donor
FA 2002.9

The floor was an emotionally charged, low, irreverent space, a place where you throw things, where you drop your dirty clothes. Something precious like an artwork was not supposed to be on the floor. – Polly Apfelbaum

In this “fallen painting,” Apfelbaum abolishes prior notions of artistic space and materials and constructs a hybrid form that is simultaneously painting and sculpture, fine art and common craft. The artist hand-cuts, dyes, and arranges individual pieces of crushed stretch velvet to unleash an explosion of textiles that disrupts physical space and invites bodily interaction. Maturing as an artist after the legacy of Minimalism, Apfelbaum makes a feminist response to the hard-edged aesthetic of the male-dominated genre by employing soft fabric and handmade forms. Flying Hearts embraces a fresh decorative quality that seduces the eye with a sensuous palette and rhythmic patterning, in contrast to Minimalism’s stark geometric reductions. With “feminine” craft and a painterly aesthetic, the artist claims architectural space in a manner entirely different from that of her male counterparts, domesticating their raw, industrial productions and creating a work that is as beautiful as it is transformative.

-- Label copy for Vortexhibition Polyphonica: Opus III, July 1, 2010, to January 12, 2011.