Jane South

On view at Spencer Brownstone Gallery and online, “Switch Back,” as conceived by Jane South, reveals the culmination of an experimental digression from the usual scope of her practice: namely, as a series of soft sculptures.

These new pieces—which the Brooklyn-based artist crafted out of materials like canvas, tarps, and packing foam—stand in stark contrast to the elaborate, machine-inspired paper-and-wood fabrications that have dominated her work in the past. Likewise, in previous shows at the gallery, South has staged sprawling installations out of such inflexible, monumentally-scaled sculptural edifices as well as smaller, self-contained counterparts resembling mechanical contraptions—lending to the overall impression of a generic industrial landscape.

While the pieces in “Switch Back,” being more malleable, do not cut as imposing of silhouettes, the patterns they manifest bring to mind other dimensions of manufacturing-centric environments: in the manner that, Lash (2020), for instance, echoes the shape of a massive wheel—or in the way that Cutter (2019), alternately, as a quilt-like assemblage, resembles the dishevelment of discarded fabric swatches strewn across a garment factory’s floor.