Common Love,
Aesthetics of Becoming
April 27–June 11, 2011
N. Dash
Untitled (10 IV), 2010
Black-and-white photograph
12 x 12 in.
Courtesy the artist
In her photographs, N. Dash intentionally chooses a nearly unidentifiable subject. After pocketing a small piece of cotton, Dash goes through the motions of her day, occasionally rubbing the material, leaving it for perhaps days, before removing it and photographing its subsequent deterioration. This particular material—natural in its origin, historic in the context of American Capitalism, and now ubiquitous in households—is implicated in complex ways. While cotton can exemplify the transformation of nature into a commodity, Dash situates herself in relation to the material, not simply as a consumer, but as an actor upon it. Her movements are responsible for a new transformation—one in which a personalized object is produced and made into the subject of her art.