Meat me in Detroit – Cristin Richard at Playground Detroit @ Knight Arts Blog
There are a number of ways to make art that is visceral and gripping. In a new body of work being presented at Playground Detroit, Cristin Richard takes a direct approach; she uses literal viscera as her starting point.
Working with animal casings—translucent skins that are used to make sausages, dried to a thin, wax paper-like texture—she has generated an installation that is at turns delicate and disturbing. The impact of these pieces on a physical level is intensified because the materials are deftly formed into into shapes that inherently function as visual synecdoche for bodies: empty shoes, braids of hair, legs.