CLAUDIA COMTE
THE LANGUAGE OF THINGS

CITY HALL PARK BROADWAY & CHAMBERS STREET, NEW YORK CITY, USA
28 JUNE – 29 SEPTEMBER 2016

"There is no event or thing in either animate or inanimate nature that does not in some way partake in language, for it is in the nature of each one to communicate its mental contents." Walter Benjamin, ‘On Language as Such and on the Language of Man’ (1916).


Language is not limited to the form of words. From the glow of a lamppost or the curve of a bench to a bird’s song, we are constantly in dialogue with what theorist Walter Benjamin called “the language of things.” This exhibition speaks to our innate attempts to understand and read patterns inherent in the world around us. The show features new and existing objects, live artwork, sound installation, and poetry suggestive of different forms of coded communication—both manmade and natural—between a person and an object, among people and nature, or connecting people.

Claudia Comte's site-responsive installation 'The Italian Bunnies' speaks to her interest in repetition, patterns, and subtle variations of forms within her practice. The shapes of the individual sculptures reference the language of modernist abstraction, while also reading as cartoon-like figures, with each taking on its character. Together they form an anthropomorphic family on the lawn.

Each bunny has its name, relating to historic Italian sculptors: Guido, Pietro, Gian Lorenzo, Leonardo, Donatello, Michelangelo, and Properzia. 

Curated by Public Art Fund Associate Curator Emma Enderby with initial development by former Public Art Fund Curator Andria Hickey.© Images Jayson Wyche

FEATURED ARTIST

CLAUDIA COMTE
Claudia Comte (b. 1983 in Grancy, Switzerland) is an artist based in the countryside outside of Basel, Switzerland. She studied at the Ecole Cantonale d’Art de Lausanne, ECAL (2004-2007) followed by a Masters of Art in Science of Education at Haute Ecole Pédagogique, Visual Arts, Lausanne, Switzerland (2008-2010). 

Comte works between media, often combining sculptures or installations with wall paintings to create environments where works relate to each other with a visual rhythm that is both methodical and playful. Her work is defined by her interest in the memory of materials and by a careful observation of how the hand relates to d...
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