The Page Gallery is proud to present Glancing Blows, a solo exhibition by Brooklyn-based artist Misha Kahn from 4 September to 20 October, 2023. This will be Misha Kahn's second solo exhibition at The Page Gallery in four years, following his first solo exhibition in Korea in 2019.

Misha Kahn's works function as furniture−chairs, mirrors, lights, tables−but also cross the boundaries between form and concept as well as aesthetics and practicality, only to be characterised by their avant-garde shapes. Described as 'disheveled, spontaneous maximalism'—and based on a technique of assemblage—his work is a conceptual intertwining of seemingly disparate elements, and has the power to both express and subvert contemporary material culture. This exhibition presents a selection of the artist's signature series, created in collaboration with various craft studios, and includes 15 sculptures and one media installation with sound.

Where does our body end and man-made parts begin? Where do objects exist in this spectrum? These amorphous, vaguely bodily shapes connect like organs or perhaps prosthetics puzzled into a splint. If they're not 'of us' then are they part of our avatars? And are we worshipping ourselves in a temple of our own creation—of humans becoming less human? Are these objects relics of ourselves?

– Misha Kahn, Artist's note for Glancing Blows (2023)

Greeting visitors at the entrance to the exhibition, Dusk's Raveled Whisps is part of Misha Kahn's 'Lavumisa' series, which began after he visited Lavumisa, Eswatini (formerly Swaziland), in Southern Africa, in 2015. Kahn has been collaborating for some time with Gone Rural, an organisation that introduces the handicrafts of women artisans in the region to international markets. This piece is another result of the collaboration, combining a ceramic clock made in the artist's studio with a sculptural body woven by women artisans in Lavumisa from grasses such as sisal, lutindzi, and lukhasi.

In 2017, Misha Kahn was invited to be a visiting artist at the Technogel studio in Italy, and has been working with them ever since. Considered a biocompatible material, technogel is often used in pillows and mattresses. For Kahn, he transformed it into the top of a chair in F_ruit Snacks on the Dash Chair_, the face in Filler Queen, and the flowers and elongated tongues in Edible Flowers and Forked Tongues (Brunch). The three works in the gel series were also part of the artist's solo exhibition, entitled Under the Wobble Moon. Objects from the Capricious Age, at the Museum Villa Stuck in Munich, Germany, in 2022.

Using the same form as the cast frame for Fruit Snacks on the Dash Chair, The Ever Sessile Pupa is equipped not with technogel but with a cloth cushion embroidered with Kahn's drawing of moth wings on an aluminium skeleton. The contrasting properties of the cold aluminium and the soft, light thread reflect Kahn's intention to capture the friction and imbalance of materials in an object.

The 'Saturday Morning' series was first conceived at WheatonArts, a glass residency program in Millville, New Jersey. The series was inspired by artist Hank Murta Adams, whose glass work is based on spontaneity and the suburban culture of the region, where there is a plethora of cheerful dollar stores and the local strip malls, and is reminiscent of the artist's own happy childhood of sitting in front of the TV and watching cartoons every Saturday morning with a bowl of cereal in his lap. The 'Saturday Morning' series started out with small mirrors made of hand-cast glass and evolved into large multi-part mirrors, a lamp like Katy Perry 2011 VMA, and coffee tables such as Winter Lichen and Cloud Flavor.

Misha Kahn's large-scale mirror Do You See Yourself in Space, presented at DESIGN MIAMI/BASEL 2022, was inspired by craters—as with those on the surface of a planet or the moon—which are formed by the impact of meteorites or other celestial bodies. To represent the pitted form of the crater, Kahn placed reverse polished circular protrusions in a matte-finished frame, bringing to mind the space-age designs of the mid-century.

The ceiling light Tail End, the table lamps My Tonne and Turbo Olierius (Hyperdrive), and the stools Aura Stool and Box Toad Stool, all of which clearly reveal Misha Kahn's unconventional visual language, were created using a VR tool called Oracle Medium which the artist began using in 2019. Kahn likens the program to a 'cheat code' for video games, as it allows the atypical shapes he uses to come to life naturally and speeds up his work process by allowing him to sculpt and paint at the same time. Here's what Misha Kahn said about his VR work.

What I like about the digital thing is it gives you this opportunity to add a whole new element. Seeing something that was so casually drawn in VR manifested in metal, this sort of irreverent, simple sketchiness then has so much gravitas to it.

– Misha Kahn, Casually Sauntering the Perimeter of Now (p. 112, Apartamento Publishing S.L., 2023)

The artist, who actively utilises a variety of digital tools in his work, emphasises his wide media spectrum in The Factory, a media installation with sound. Installed on a 4.5-metre wall, the work is not a looped video but an ever-changing simulation in real time. It critically projects contemporary material culture by infinitely showing the process of producing and disposing of new furniture in a digital factory.

Press release courtesy The Page Gallery.