The Window on Broad is always a tough space to put art. The glare on the glass there is formidable.
Alex Da Corte’s “The Death of All Things Beautiful,” a droopy stuffed pink horse embelleshed with flowers, holds the space, where it will remain until April 22. The horse is a sort of memento for childhood and beloved stuffed toys ultimately abandoned, as well as a memento for that innocent devotion between child and animal.
The surprising size, floral appliques and color–normally, horses are male in the imagination, safe but sexy partners to preteen girls–pushes the horse into a personification of a pretty-in-pink girl grown up. Even though its lack of hooves makes the horse somewhat sadder and more powerless, the decoration has a power of its own. I am reminded, in the trailing fabric off the pointed feet, of ribbons from toe shoes (the image, provided by the artist, does not show the appliqued flowers and doesn’t give a sense of scale; this is large and imposing at the same time that it’s all gussied up.).
Here’s some background I got from Da Corte in an email:
I am a 24-year-old artist residing in Philadelphia, a recent BFA graduate of the University of the Arts with a degree in printmaking/ fine arts.
I started making work for the public a few years ago in the form of wheat pasting, which is a type of grafitti using printed images and gluing them onto abandoned billboards around the city.
My work was mainly about ketchup and diners and the idea that ketchup was the “light of the world” in the diner world. I have always made installations about diners or my time spent in the hospital and more recently about people and the fascinating interactions that are shared amongst us everyday. My work is all across the board, consisting of paintings, sculptures, clothing, and installation work.
