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Art: Grant Mooney’s calcis at Wesleyan
September 17 @ 4:30 pm - 6:00 pm
Tuesday, September 17 – Sunday, December 8, 2024
Tuesday through Sunday, Noon to 5pm
Opening Reception: Sept. 17- 4:30pm to 6pm
Witness the alchemical assemblages of Grant Mooney’s sculptures, which respond to the materials and processes embedded in the Ezra and Cecile Zilkha Gallery’s building, specifically the limestone bricks that are the building blocks of the entire Center for the Arts.
The works in calcis center the processes embedded in the building, including the routines and functions in what constitutes its various activities, but also its chemical compositions. Calcium carbonate and its material properties are a foreground of Mooney’s practice while also the core architectural component of the gallery’s limestone brick walls. The exhibition extends into the labor production of exhibitions by utilizing existing physical supports as installation elements within the space.
The Center for the Arts is comprised of hundreds of Indiana limestone bricks which were cast and assembled on site. Limestone is a type of rock formed of crystalline calcium carbonate from deposits of seashells. Calcium carbonate is the predominant chemical compound found in cuttlebone, the cartilaginous internal shell of the cuttlefish. Cuttlebone is used for carving and casting metals within jewelry-making practices. Originally trained in jewelry design, Grant Mooney has used cuttlebone in a number of sculptures, foregrounding the material in exhibitions at Progetto in Lecce, Italy (2023) where limestone is a predominant architectural material, and at Miguel Abreu Gallery in New York City (2022) where limestone can be found in the gallery’s floor tiles.
