The ‘stubborn’ in Simone Subal’s excellent group show Stubborn Materials signifies more than mere recalcitrance; it is also meant to imply something of the selected works’ general reticence, or more forcefully, their absolute refusal to speak.

Nick Herman’s sculptural pieces are perhaps the most willfully silent, while not doubt having the most to say. With Halves (all works 2007) Herman has modeled the heads and front quarters of a sheep and wolf in fiberglass-reinforced plaster, a pairing which suggest that the to figures, bound by the antagonism of predator and prey, remain incomplete without the other. And a second piece, Part, a partial cast of rock face, hangs on the wall bearing the kind of mute self-evidence with Jasper John’s work greeted its public half a century ago. Read More