Justin Cooper prefers materials that are basic and a touch absurd: garden hose, pumpkins, popcorn, craft paper, cardigan sweaters, packing tape to name a few. Often he assembles the materials in masses that are more performative prop than sculptural matter. Thead is his first to resist bricolage and just sit still; for Thread, Cooper has produced a pared down sculpture using one material, garden hose, on a grand scale. The stillness does not contribute to clearer definition of meaning or explanation of form.

When there is no definitive end in sight and all is jumbled, it is difficult to know where to even begin. Disagreements, lovers’ spats, scribbles, politics, balls of string, trains of thought; with these beginnings and endings rarely line up. Confronting these tangles, chances are you perceive what you are prepared to recognize. If you have a suspicious constitution, for example, every tick uncovers proof of ill-intentioned nature. It comes down to viewpoint. This fact is at the heart of Justin Cooper’s Thread.

-excerpt from an essay by Anthony Elms-

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