Marlon Forrester: "Draft Day"
Exhibition Dates: July 10th - July 28th, 2018
How’s Howard? is pleased to present Draft Day, Marlon Forrester’s first solo exhibition with the gallery and his third presentation of work here. After three-years of programing in Boston, Forrester’s exhibition will close out the season, as the gallery prepares to relocate to San Francisco in the Fall.
Forrester, born in Guyana, lives and works in Boston. He studied at Brandeis University, The School of the Museum of Fine Arts and The Yale University School of Art, where he received his MFA in painting. Shown congruently with this installation is Forrester’s solo exhibition B.O.A.T. Crane 65 at the USS Constitution Museum in Charlestown, through October 1st. Forrester’s upcoming exhibition will be shown at Kate Oh Gallery in New York’s Upper East Side, on view August 23rd through September 15th.
Draft Day, Forrester’s all-encompassing installation takes over the entire gallery, drawing attention to the physical and abstract boundaries within exhibition form and contemporary society. Forrester uses tactics rooted in linear perspective to enhance spatial awareness and alter a spectator’s perception and orientation. This installation challenges the architectural framework of the gallery and transgresses conventional boundaries established by institutional constructs. Abstract paintings on paper are framed with black tape and adhered to the floor, walls, pipes and door. Tape segments circumvent the installation, acting as an adhesive tool and method of drawing, connecting a sequence of small abstract-expressionist paintings. Floating taped lines cross the threshold of a doorframe and dangle in space before turning into a drip of black paint, thwarting a spectator’s expectations.
Taped lines migrate down from white walls toward a black floor and transition into scumbled, gestural stripes of white paint- imagery that is generated by the “in-bounds” and “out-of-bounds” delineations of a basketball court. The texture and expression of the hand-painted lines stand in high contrast to the precise manufactured edge of the taped lines. The title of the show, Draft Day, refers to the “draft”, a process designed to assign qualified athletes to professional sports teams. Forrester’s background as a basketball player influences his mastery of improvisation and command of space. With this show, Forrester continues his on going critique of institutionalized racism in professional basketball.