Andy Coolquitt “no I didn’t go to any museums here…” installation at Maryam Nassir Zadeh, New York

no I didn’t go to any museums here… is a recent instillation by Texas born artist Andy Coolquitt at the retail store Maryam Nassir Zadeh on Norfolk Street. Coolquitt’s instillation is presented by Lisa Cooley Gallery, located just a few steps south from Zadeh’s store. Coolquitt, who frequently uses found objects as well as detritus to build his totemic shrine-like instillations, has employed similar ideas here, with a particular focus on the objects that construct our cultural memory. The instillation, a raised Plexiglas vitrine, acts as a kind of shrine for the materials it houses, calling into question ideas of reuse and rebirth of everyday objects. In Maryam’s store Coolquitts’s instillation feels entirely organic even expected. The instillation’s full title no I didn’t go to museums here I hate museums museums are just stores that charge you to come in there are lots of free museums here but they have names like real stores is a particularly apt phrase, and one that poses the question, am I in a museum or a store? And is there a difference? Text and Photo Audrey Rose Smith

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