Strange Mutations

A red leather strap ends in a silver buckle, with a row of holes punctured down the middle: a belt. Actually, dozens of belts, but longer than they should be. Lined side by side and entwined in neat loops, they formed something like a mountain, quivering slightly, swaying on an axis, hovering in the corner of a bright, white gallery. Actually, they aren’t hovering. Look closely and a pair of human feet is revealed to be planted firmly on the ground below, supporting the cascading structure. This breathing scene, on view during the opening night of New Lexicons for Embodiment, Bárbara Sánchez-Kane’s solo exhibition at kurimanzutto, had the uncanny quality of a fever dream.

A sense of the oneiric is often present in Sánchez-Kane’s work, which builds heavily upon her background in fashion. Similar sculptures, rendered in black or white leather, hung on the surrounding walls sans human host, as if waiting—one imagines even hoping—to be activated by a body. Across from the man obscured by the tangle of belts are two bronze sculptures of Jesus, around the length of a forea…