45cbm: Cooper Jacoby

The exhaustion of resources, the digestion of waste and the reconfiguration of existing hardware are key concerns in the practice of Cooper Jacoby (*1989). Matte Wetter (German for ‘choke damp’), his exhibition at the 45cbm studio space, examines the life cycles of optimized materials with a light installation and a series of new wall works based on urban beehives.

Jacoby inverts the ways in which biomorphic aesthetics and holistic metaphors are deployed by design, denaturalizing the supposedly “green” to reveal its toxic core.  As carbon emissions have accelerated an epidemic extinction of bees, Jacoby reassembles hives out of honeycomb materials and rare earth minerals used in automotive exhausts.  In tandem with their elliptical, discursive connections, these works foreground their sculptural presence through a multifaceted, even uncanny material language.