New Year 11: Josh Faught
Procedures to Reduce Contamination and Stimulate Better Living
June 17 – 26, 2010

For the eleventh installment in New Year, Western Bridge’s series of two-week projects, Josh Faught presents an installation of new sculpture.

Many of the works in the show are loosely based on a list of rules from a now-defunct bathhouse that the artist found while perusing the Pacific Northwest Gay and Lesbian Archives in Portland. The list, a single sheet of mimeographed paper with the header “Rules to Party Play,” resembles something that might appear in an office break room. Faught reconfigures the text through an expressive vernacular of crocheted and handwoven textiles. The artist employs bleached hemp yarn, French manicure press-on nails, political pins, potpourri pies, spray paint, scrapbooking stickers, and sequins, simultaneously articulating the deepest domestic lament and the most urgent political strategies.

Josh Faught lives and works in San Francisco, CA where he teaches at California College of the Arts. He is the winner of the Seattle Art Museum’s 2009 Betty Bowen award and is represented by Lisa Cooley Fine Art in New York.