Look carefully at Beauty Surplus on view through May 24, 2020, at the John Michael Kohler Arts Center in Sheboygan. See if the ceiling looks different than your average drop-type affair. Peer into the fireplace; is that black stuff there on purpose? Step carefully into the parlor, as the floor bulges and pops as though some supervillain is trying to bust through.
Beauty Surplus is Serra Victoria Bothwell Fels’s first solo museum show. The Brooklyn-based artist spent three months in Sheboygan for her Arts/Industry Pottery residency at Kohler Co. The residency gave her access to all the industrial processes and materials the Kohler factory has to offer, from clay slip and glazes to giant kilns. Bothwell Fels used the abundance of material to further her exploration of physical environments and shifting perceptions of them.
While working in the factory, Bothwell Fels deliberately courted failure. She poured slip, a creamy mixture of clay and water used in the ceramics process, into Tupperware lids just to watch it crack, a mistake artists-in-residence usually try to avoid. She found ways to work egg crate foam, used to protect toilets and other fixtures as they wend their way through the manufacturing process, into her art. She collected spills and drops from the process and then fired the ladybug-size bits she referred to as “freckles” in the industrial-size kiln. Bothwell Fels used the #slimemoldSunday images on social media to draw inspiration from the group’s fascination with the startling beauty of microorganisms.
The result: An exhibition that challenges its confines—the galleries in the circa-1882 John Michael Kohler home—and challenges the notion of what makes the human body beautiful. Effluvia oozes from under a radiator. A shiny black blob nestles defiantly in a fireplace hearth. Ceiling panels bulge. Window coverings sag and strain with mystery bumps and lumps.
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Beauty Surplus: Serra Victoria Bothwell Fels installation view at the John Michael Kohler Arts Center, 2019. Photo courtesy of John Michael Kohler Arts Center.
The artwork, and the galleries they are displayed in, challenge viewers to reconsider the nature of the human body, and what they’ve been told is beautiful. Or ugly. You might never look at a blackhead, or hardwood floor, the same way again.
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Beauty Surplus: Serra Victoria Bothwell Fels installation view at the John Michael Kohler Arts Center, 2019. Photo courtesy of John Michael Kohler Arts Center.
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Beauty Surplus: Serra Victoria Bothwell Fels installation view at the John Michael Kohler Arts Center, 2019. Photo courtesy of John Michael Kohler Arts Center.
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Beauty Surplus: Serra Victoria Bothwell Fels installation view at the John Michael Kohler Arts Center, 2019. Photo courtesy of John Michael Kohler Arts Center.
Beauty Surplus is on view through May 24, 2020. The John Michael Kohler Arts Center is located in Sheboygan. Admission is free. Arts Center hours are Monday, Wednesday, Friday 10 a.m. to 5 p.m.; Tuesday and Thursday 10 a.m. to 8 p.m.; and Saturday and Sunday 10 a.m. to 4 p.m. Visit jmkac.org for holiday closings and to plan a visit.
