The Intervening Substance
Nicole Banowetz: The Intervening Substance
Foothills Art Center
809 15th Street, Golden, CO 80401
May 14–August 8, 2020
Admission: Free
Review by Laura I. Miller
Nicole Banowetz is best known for her large-scale inflatable sculptures seen crawling along the sides of buildings and filling up unique spaces. The exhibition at Golden’s Foothills Art Center, The Intervening Substance, on display May 14 to August 8, offers the viewer a glimpse of Banowetz’s singular style. Her sci-fi-esque sculptures familiarize unseen relationships between worlds and present the viewer with a complex argument for the preservation of our environment.
Nicole Banowetz, Nexus, 2021, fabric (Oxford nylon and metallic coated rip stop), fans, motors, and mirrors. Image by Anna Schoen of Foothills Art Center.
In Nexus, Banowetz has modeled single-cell organisms, choanoflagellates, for her floor-to-ceiling sculptures. Motors attached to the top of each of three figures cause them to spin and whir, contributing to the immersive environment. The plushy, gold-and-black fabrics; the bulbous, elongated shapes; and the mirrors at the base of the middle figure further draw in the viewer. Banowetz’s captivating and original interpretation of the silica-creating choanoflagellates—who share ancestry with humans—raises awareness of the complex interrelationships that support life on this planet.
With its glitz and glam, Nexus seems like the star of the show. Yet, the majority of the exhibition is on display farther back in the museum’s east gallery, in what was once the building’s chapel. The Intervening Substance, The Ideoplast, and The Mother make excellent use of the space’s towering ceilings and stained-glass windows.
Nicole Banowetz, The Ideoplast and The Intervening Substance, 2020–2021, epoxy resin, technology, nylon fabric, bilge fans, and plastics. Image by Laura I. Miller.
The exhibition’s eponymous sculpture, The Intervening Substance, takes its inspiration from ectoplasm, which was a web-like substance thought to be produced by “spirit mediums” from the 1840s to the 1920s. The interconnected white sculptures that make up The Intervening Substance hang limply from the gallery’s ceiling. Only interacting with the sculpture—pressing buttons with both hands while simultaneously speaking into a microphone—can bring the sculpture to life. I found it refreshing and even inspiring to play a role in the sculpture’s evolution (via inflation).
Nicole Banowetz, The Mother, 2019, nylon fabric and blower. Image by DARIA.
The Mother, which was previously on display in a Houston silo, shares the space with The Intervening Substance, though it’s tucked into a cave with an arched entryway and the east gallery’s only brick walls. Like Nexus, The Mother’s bulbous shapes invite the viewer to embrace them. However, the pink tones in this sculpture, which Banowetz says in an interview with Foothills Art Center have to be custom dyed, give the sculpture a more nurturing atmosphere. It’s impossible not to think of a womb and mothering when viewing this sculpture, as the title suggests.
Nicole Banowetz, Simulant Futures, 2020, performance, technology, epoxy resin, plastic, and lenses, with a visitor peering in to see a performance video inside one of the sculptures. Image by Laura I. Miller.
In a separate room, Banowetz’s video display, Simulant Futures, further explores themes of mothering and interdependence. Nipple-like, white structures surround two videos, which play simultaneously against a white wall. The viewer peers into a white portal to watch each video, which shows a single figure wearing an insect-like inflatable costume. Created during the COVID-19 lockdown, the videos perform “imagined versions of future realities,” as Banowetz states on the accompanying plaque. The videos’ staging and subject matter emphasize the exhibition’s contrast of the soft and feminine with the dangerous and unknown.
A video still from Nicole Banowetz’s, Simulant Futures, 2020. Image by DARIA.
So much about Banowetz’s work encourages additional social commentary. “It’s like the clash of science and religion,” said a friend of mine as we moved through the chapel-turned-gallery. Banowetz’s sculptures explore the many ways we find meaning, from science to religion to the supernatural.
“Humans strive for guidance and acceptance from mysterious external forces. Not only do we pursue messages from the dead but also solicit advice from artificial intelligence, fortune tellers, technology, aliens, gods, and celebrities or social media. What do we give up when we focus our search for meaning and acceptance on distant external forces?” Banowetz writes.
The Intervening Substance invites us to find meaning in unexpected places, in our relationship to the environment and the organisms that help us thrive. Most importantly, The Intervening Substance offers a perspective of the world that de-centers humans and calls for us to look beyond ourselves to build a more sustainable future.
Laura I. Miller is a Denver-based writer, editor, and arts supporter. Her reviews have appeared in Lit Hub, Electric Literature, Bustle, and elsewhere. She received an MFA in creative writing from the University of Arizona.
