Ali Naschke-Messing. Collaborating with One’s Environment

During my recent trip to view Ali Naschke-Messing’s work at Pro Arts Gallery in Oakland, CA, I was struck by the perceptible collaboration of the artist with the environment to produce her work. Whether allowing time or the environment to alter her work or by exerting influence over the environment, the push and pull relationship is a key element of these latest works. This collaboration can be seen quite clearly in a series of “accidental drawings” Naschke-Messing made by painting a salt-and-water paste on pieces of vellum. The drawings were then left to change and develop organically in environments such as the Marin Headlands and the Hunter’s Point Shipyard. The effect is quiet, ghostly, ephemeral.

Naschke-Messing’s soundings sculptures, in contrast, involve the artist digging a hole in Rodeo Beach in the Marin Headlands and depositing both breath and sound. Soundings are mechanisms by which an environment is tested utilizing a stimulus such as sound, vibration, light, or touch. In nature, animals might do this to determine the depth of water or the distance between two surfaces. The sound from the artist’s shouts affected the shape and depth of the hole. A plaster cast was taken and re-cast in bronze. The sculptures capture interesting causal moments in nature. As Ali Naschke-Messing writes, “the sonic positive regained.” The artist reacts to her space, the environment replies.

Ali Naschke-Messing, 2×2 Solos, Pro Arts Gallery, Oakland, CA, through September 27, 2013

Ali Naschke-Messing, Ringed, Accidental Drawing (salt, vellum and environment at the Hunter’s Point Shipyard), 2×2 Solos, Pro Arts Gallery, Oakland

Ali Naschke-Messing, Take the backward step and directly reach the middle of the circle from where light issues forth, kaleidoscope (wooden box, mirror, adhesives, plastic ball and leather), 2×2 Solos, Pro Arts Gallery, Oakland

Ali Naschke-Messing, Sounding (When you let go, it fills your mouth (there is no limit to vertical or horizontal)), 2×2 Solos, Pro Arts Gallery, Oakland

Ali Naschke-Messing, Sounding (When you let go, it fills your mouth (there is no limit to vertical or horizontal)) (detail), 2×2 Solos, Pro Arts Gallery, Oakland