Susan Tabachnick
Blades. Surgical pliers. A length of wire. Who used them, and for what exact purpose, remains unknown. But used they were, and then discarded and collected by artist Susan Tabachnick. She then made them into new art for a show called “Artifacts,” running now until July 12 at Da Silva Gallery on Whalley Avenue in Westville. The gallery, operating under the guidelines for maintaining social distancing, is open by appointment.
The New Haven-based Tabachnick finds her artifacts from sidewalk sales and salvage, said Gabriel Da Silva, who owns Da Silva Gallery. Some people may recognize the previous function of some of the items in the pieces — Da Silva was pretty sure some of the wires were parts from street sweepers, for example — but “we don’t necessarily know what these objects did.” That’s part of the fun of Tabachnick’s work. She is “reinterpreting individual pieces,” Da Silva said. “You can have a conversation as to what everybody sees.”
Da Silva had had planned to open Tabachnick’s show in March, though the pandemic-related shutdown quashed those plans. Da Silva said his business was able to weather the closure, though he was also grateful to be able to reopen. “If this had been much longer, we would have had to think again,” he said.
He also credited city and state officials — as well as the general public — for putting public health first. “I think New Haven has done an amazing job,” he said. “We would not be in the position we’re in now otherwise” of being able to reopen shops at all.
Gabriel da Silva.
During the shutdown, Da Silva was still able to come in to the office. In addition, his framing business got work from “blue-chip” artists, such as Titus Kaphar, for special projects that brought some income in and helped them make expenses. It was also a time for Da Silva to “do things I never had the chance to do.” He cleaned the basement of his shop, which he’d been meaning to do for years. and upgraded the shop and gallery’s internet presence, hiring local New Haveners to help him and “keeping the money here,” he said.
The focus on going local extends to Da Silva’s future plans. “I used to travel a lot,” he said, across the United States and abroad, for art shows and for pleasure. The uncertainty brought on by the pandemic has changed all of that. “I can’t plan,” he said. So he has decided 2020 is a “year of maintaining.”
Part of that maintenance, he continued, included moving a shop he co-owns from Brooklyn to State Street in New Haven, where he said he just signed a lease. “In order for our type of business to survive,” he said, “we need to be able to diversify within the scope of what we do.”
The shop creates custom canvases for painters, which involves everything from constructing frames to stretching canvases. The State Street space will be under construction for the next couple months, but Da Silva is considering perhaps opening a gallery space there as well. He is also considering using the shop to create an internship program for art students to learn the more industrial side of their craft. He’s thankful to both the city and his new landlord on State Street for their help in making the process of opening such a business smoother.
“I’ve been here for 20 years, and we’ve had some ups and downs,” he said, of both his own business and what he has seen across the city. “But I can see the effort, a lot of blood, sweat, and tears. There are a lot of people trying to make things happen.”
Tabachnick’s show plays into that sentiment. In her pieces, the original function of any of the artifacts in her pieces is secondary. What matters are the forms of the pieces, and what new shapes she can create with them. The variations prove to be endless. In some, the artist arranges the pieces to create a sleek, elegant design.
In others, the pieces are arranged playfully, or configured almost as if they’re parts to a new kind of machine, with an as-yet-discovered new function.
In still others, it’s possible to glimpse the skyline of a new city. In the context of the city’s reopening and its political upheaval, Tabachnick’s art serves as a potent metaphor. In the past few months, the pieces that run the city’s machine have been scattered and jumbled, but they are still here, waiting for us to pick them up again. When we do, we don’t have to put them back in the same place we found them. We can rearrange those pieces according to a different concept, a fresher image, and from them, create something new.
“Artifacts” is currently running at the Da Silva Gallery, 897 – 899 Whalley Avenue, in Westville. Contact the gallery to make an appointment.