On view October 7 - November 2, 2024

Super Secret Projects presents Form + Dysfunction, a solo exhibition by Laura Holmes McCarthy, showcasing her continued exploration of the limits of functionality through sculptural ceramic vessels.


In Form + Dysfunction, vessels express maladaptation like bodies holding physical memory, informed by McCarthy’s personal history of engaging with productivity as a means of disengaging from grief. Straddling the line between sculptural art and functional objects, each vessel subverts the conventional concept of ‘good design’—which extols a frictionless merger between form and function resulting in objects that succeed in their failure to draw attention to themselves—by purposefully introducing formal disorder as a means of actively forcing the user’s attention. As functional design, they are not so much high-performing as they are high-functioning in spite of their dysfunction. As sculptural pieces, they ask us to interact with the way in which our bodies–often seen as disposable resources within a larger economic framework–cannot escape their innate humanity; revolting through breakdown and reactive adaptation to force us back into acute awareness of our most fundamental self

Work will be on display at the Super Secret Project speakeasy-style gallery, located at 484 Main St, Beacon NY, behind the Hyperbole shop.