How is it possible for flower to emerge from stone?
How is it possible for an object to contain the soul;
for the whole of ourselves to be held in the eyes of another?
But who are we to scoff at such things?
Who are we to doubt such miracles?
* * * * * * *
Faith, Lub Poeem’s third solo exhibition with the gallery, presents two long-running bodies of work: rock vases and camera sculptures.
The rock vases are an exercise in economy of gesture: a cut to balance and a hole to bear. Sourced from their travels and dump sites in Omaha, these previously disregarded objects are reanimated through Poeem’s minor interventions. At the beginning of the exhibition, flowers are placed in the vases, activating the works. Each vase may be seen as a memento mori in-becoming. As the exhibition runs its course, the flowers will dry, wilting into a final form, completing the sculpture for perpetuity.
The camera sculptures are poetic transformations of found objects. Poeem modifies them in a variety of ways: some act as canvases, others as vitrines. Poeem removes their function in an effort to emancipate and afford these objects appreciation on their own terms. No longer in service to reality and freed of the burden to represent the world, they are given new life.
What great faith it demands to see beauty, to feel love and give ourselves to the world completely, asking nothing in return.
Lub Poeem (b. 1990) lives and works in Omaha, NE. Recent exhibitions include Menagerie, Asbestos (Melbourne); My Whole World, Baader-Meinhof (Omaha); Lint, Kimmel Gallery at Midland University (Fremont); LACK, Baader-Meinhof (Omaha); A New Museum’s Triennial, FR MOCA (Fall River) and The Subject, Proxy (Providence). Poeem will present a solo exhibition at Final Hot Desert (London) in January 2025.
