Nairy Baghramian @ Marian Goodman Gallery

An exhibition by Nairy Baghramian, Scruff of the Neck comprises a group of amorphous sculptures unified in a site-responsive constellation, which imagines the two floors of the gallery as the interior of a human head.  The sculptures are all titled Scruff of the Neck, and are differentiated by designations from dentistry: LL 23/24 & LR 26/27/28 – presumably ‘lower left’ and ‘lower right’.  Anyone who has paid handsomely for orthodontic treatment will grudgingly attest to the way tailor-made tooth-training devices can resemble miniature sculptures.  Baghramian’s work co-opts some of these forms, but scaled as if the skull were the size of the gallery spaces.  Her materials – cast and polished aluminium, polished aluminium rods, plaster, beeswax and rubber – have the sheen and monochrome palette of minimalist sculpture, but the references to the body are inescapable.