I N D E X

Thursday, December 11, 2025

Material Play * Helen Marten

Prolific assemblages test the borders of meaning, where language meets objecthood. Everyday materials—ceramic ducks, tin cans, kitchen tiles—become coded artefacts in a linguistic game of semiotic drift. References loop from arcane symbolism to pop trivialities, orchestrated into structures that evoke cabinets, altars or pinball machines. It’s not narrative, but syntax: sculptural grammar that toys with our urge to decode. Objects perform double duty—literal and metaphorical—anchored in the handmade yet resisting definition. Disjointed hierarchies and cryptic drawings destabilise value, craft, authorship. This is art as cognitive architecture: playful, rigorous, unresolved.