“You’re at an intersection of artists, dealers, critics, journalists, curators and collectors, and the action is always fast-paced.” Her involvement with artists and their studios can be as routine as frequent phone calls to check in; or traveling to shows around the globe; or overseeing an installation—at a gallery, a museum, or for a public art project; or arranging for a lecture at a conference; or supporting a book project. The five gallery artists Molly works with operate in different media, with distinct personal traditions and abiding themes. Understanding what exposure or support would be instrumental at any point in an artist’s creative process means being intuitive, knowledgeable and, often, bold. Mounting shows that are substantive and that register on a national and international level is a key avenue for showcasing an artist’s professional evolution.
Molly works with sculptor and installation artist Jim Hodges, and one case in point is Hodges’s 2011 exhibition of new work, mounted across both Gladstone Gallery spaces in New York. Hodges was acting chair of Yale’s sculpture department last year, and his work is featured in the permanent collections of esteemed museums across the United States and in Europe. The two-part exhibition was Hodges’s first at the gallery’s New York locations. It showcased large-scale sculptural works that “investigate notions of time, movement, color, and reflection,” according to the gallery description. Hodges’s monumental boulders—natural surfaces facing outward and shimmering reflective surfaces facing inward—are room-size. The gallery’s interest in enabling artists to bring their ideas into being, regardless of scale or scope, figured to some degree, Molly explains, in Hodges’s execution of the work in this show. The gallery’s ability to present pieces of this size, and to welcome a broad public to experience them, allowed Hodges to take his practice in a new direction. Previously, Molly says, Hodges’s work was often characterized by an “ephemeral quality and intimate scale.”
Photo credit: David Regen
Anish Kapoor, Untitled, 2012. Weathering steel. 568 x 779 x 803 cm. Installation view: Gladstone Gallery, New York.
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