GOSIA HERC
IN FORMATION


January 11 - February 15

Opening reception with the artist on Saturday, January 11th from 5 to 7pm

BEST PRACTICE is excited to present the first solo exhibition in San Diego of the work of Gosia Herc. For this exhibition, a new body of sculptures was created over the last year in addition to a portion of her ongoing series Pacific View Studies and Broken Garages, each a group of several dozen small deadpan black and white ink and graphite drawings of garage doors that conjure the work of the New Topographics photographers of the 1970s. 


In her most recent work Bins, the artist created a trio of sculptures modeled on the archetypal domestic rolling plastic trash receptacle. Meticulously crafted out of cardboard and papier-mache, she fools us, at first glance, into believing they are carved from stone. The receptacles serve as an important prop of suburban choreography. The rumble of plastic wheels on the pavement harmonize like a peculiar neighborhood orchestra. In a synchronized ritual, the bins are dragged from the garages to the curb, where they stand in military or dance formation. For a single day (or two) they exist in a precarious state between private and public. Ordinarily transitional containers, perpetually filled and emptied – Bins, though open, lack interior, appearing solid, escaping their intended function.


In Pacific View Studies, Gosia documents the suburban architecture of Marine Corps Base Camp Pendleton. An ordinary looking neighborhood, separated from other communities by barbed wire fencing and armed guards; homes owned by a corporation, located on government land, occupied by a transient community. Through a series of drawings, the artist provides a street-view glimpse into an otherwise inaccessible place, simultaneously familiar and uncanny, archiving a space that rejects history. Focusing on the most banal and recognizable elements of American residential architecture, the facades of domesticity, Herc slides between generic and specific, real and theatrical. 

 

With a similar series of drawings, Broken Garages, the artist centers her gaze on broken garage doors, where the gridded order of a familiar architectural element is interrupted by a small rupture. The door mechanism gets jammed and, like an accidentally upturned skirt, gives us a peek into what should be concealed. Enough to whet our voyeuristic appetites, yet too little to satisfy them.

 

 A native of Poland, Gosia Herc currently lives and practices in Southern California. Her work engages concepts of domesticity, simulation, and perpetual erasure, focusing on the architecture aboard military installations. Gosia’s practice slips between collecting, archiving, voyeurism, and vandalism. Gosia Herc is a graduate of the University of California at Irvine MFA program, and alumna of the Visual Arts program at the University of California at San Diego. 

 

UPCOMING


Anna Garner
March 8 - April 12

 

1955 Julian Avenue
San Diego, CA 92113
map

 

 25th/Commercial on the Orange Line
Barrio Logan on the Blue Line

 

Gallery hours (during exhibitions):
Tuesday - Friday
11am - 4pm