Date: Saturday, October 19
Address: 7129 Olive Blvd, University City, MO 63130
Media: Ceramics, Drawing, Sculpture
Studio Features: Restroom, Refreshments, Work For Sale
Arny Nadler, Firstling No. 9, 2017, painted ceramic, courtesy the artist and Bruno David Gallery 
Arny Nadler, Firstling No. 11, 2017, painted ceramic, courtesy the artist and Bruno David Gallery 
Arny Nadler, Firstling No. 8, 2017, painted ceramic, courtesy the artist and Bruno David Gallery 
Arny Nadler, Firstling No. 2, 2017, painted ceramic, courtesy the artist and Bruno David Gallery 
Arny Nadler, Firstling No. 13, painted ceramic, courtesy the artist and Bruno David Gallery I am obsessed with the predicament of the human form, both its fragility and its dominance in the environment. The son of an immigrant tool and die maker who was permanently paralyzed in an industrial accident, I grew up preoccupied with the notion of wholeness—of body and place. This tendency toward visual appraisal was undoubtedly honed by seeing my father, as powerful as he was, struggle against his disability.
My sculpture investigates the body in a state of ambiguous metamorphosis. Many are formed by grafting individual parts together in a manner that nods at structural order but disregards anatomical and proportional correctness. Irregular outgrowths in the material signal erratic germination or atrophy—a mis-figuration of appendages. The resulting forms are often simultaneously heroic and absurd—they acknowledge the limitations of the body and flout conventional response systems. Working against symmetry, I defy the expectations of wholeness for the body. Drawing on human, animal, and unworldly bodies, the figures precariously gesture, as if even they don’t know what they truly are. Their stilled and puzzled nature is my grasping for truth or a viable system to make things whole.
