Josh Faught
Edward
Some of Josh Faught’s works have been inspired by the ad hoc monuments created at gravesites in San Francisco’s Neptune Society Columbarium, where many victims of the AIDS epidemic were laid to rest. The personal objects, mementos, and offerings left in the cemetery have become something of an archive of a particular moment in queer history and the gay community in the city.
His 2014 sculpture Edward is part of a larger series of works that Faught has made to memorialize (or simply recall) his past lovers. Each of the sculptures in the series includes objects relating to a particular person: in Edward, a VHS copy of the 1983 film Silkwood is joined by a abalone ash tray and an overturned mug. Combined with “hand woven gold lame and hemp, hand dyed in shades of Daffodil, Cardinal Red, Raspberry, Indigo, and Teas Leaves to match the color fashion forecast of 2014-2015,” the objects of Edward form a tiny shard of memory, pinpointed in time though not in space, concrete and yet so elusive.
American artist Josh Faught uses weaving, knitting, and crochet as means to making in his textured and evocative sculptures. Laden with fabric strewn over wooden structures, Faught’s works compile hand-made and found materials together to create object-analogues for individuals, capsules of memory, and archives of desire.