Press Release

Haines Gallery: “The Collectors: Rob Craigie, Nigel Poor, and Allison Smith”

July 9 – August 29, 2015

Rob Craigie

A collection tells stories–both about the materials it contains and about the logic of its owner. A consummate archivist for whom collecting is an essential creative device, Rob Craigie (b. 1968, Livonia, MI) presents Collection: A Way, an installation comprised of found items and sculptural works laid out for the visitor’s inspection, as well as a series of short video projections that add a narrative dimension to the objects on view. Hexagonal cakes of beeswax are the material evidence of the collective labor of the hive as pollen is transformed into honey, measured here in the lifespans of its tiny makers, while an assortment of materials–including maps, a video, and a jar of salt crystals–form a constellation of evidence related to Craigie’s fascination with (and 2004 journey to) Robert Smithson’s Spiral Jetty, the iconic earthwork that keeps geological time through its own changing form. Another piece, Pigeonholed Papers from a Dead Farmer suggests a life reduced to an archive of discarded records, documents, and correspondence that evokes a bygone era. Entering Craigie’s universe, visitors are invited to study his diverse artistic practice, forging new connections among the various pieces of a puzzle about transformation, death, rebirth, and discovery.