Angela Laughingheart’s knitted sculptures have nothing to do with your grandmother’s pastime or your coziest afghan. For one, their marvelously multi-textured and multi-colored tubes were mostly knit on a machine, for another you can’t wear them. Tall, skinny and tightly scrunched up, they evoke rich contradictions rather than the comfort or nostalgia that their wool and acrylic yarns suggest. Abjection emanates from their tight intestinal coiling, which also lends great sculptural form and density to cylinders that, unraveled, would stretch up to 60 feet long. Celebration bursts from their totemic stature, as from the recognition of all the intricate labor that went into their creation. Organicism pulses from their arboreal forms and naturalistic coloring, including a woodland patterning of greens and blacks and an oceanic spout of every shade of blue imaginable, plus a few shades of algae and coral. Ugly sweaters be damned—knitting here reaches new heights of purpose, way beyond domestic warmth and into the realm of the symbolic.
—Lori Waxman 6/1/13 12:10 PM
