The body has long been a reference point for queer creatives. After coming of age with the aesthetic and theoretical norms of heteronormative teachings, artists and designers turn to the human form to challenge the status quo. Whether a person-length side lamp or an amorphous sculpture, the work lends itself to alternative ways of existence and visibility. Many tap bold color palettes and gender-defying cues to blur the line between the familiar and the new. Gordon Hall is an artist who flirts with the utilitarian aspect of design in their three-dimensional forms. Behind muted tones and humble forms, their sculptures contain various potentials of use and activation.
The New York-based artist’s most recent exhibition, END OF DAY, at Chelsea’s HESSE FLATOW gallery last month featured an array of standing, or wall-leaning sculptures, which could also function as stools, chairs, and ladders. “I find sculpture to be a perfect arena in which to work out [queer] ideas,” Hall tells Interior Design. “I think that sculpture has the power to teach us new ways to see, and so I make my objects with the hope that they will complicate our conventional ways of reading bodies.” A U-shaped small scale concrete sculpture suggested its potential function as a stool, or the show’s titular piece was a poplar coat rack, which reminisced a human silhouette, completely covered with steel nails.