RODI GALLERY

“Brother Percussion”

Bryan Morello & Matthew Endler

“Brother Percussion” is a playground and workspace system installed over the gallery’s pre-existing architecture. The installation serves as a membrane and deliniates a zone of dormant labor and interactivity. Custom furnishings, engraved raw material, and readymade tools activate a space between industrial craft and interior design. Endler and Morello wear the hats of designer, fabricator, and test user to develop the environment.

Upon entering, a lion’s head -- the classic entryway greeting ornament -- rests behind a perforated pane of glass, suggesting audible exchange between two segregated spaces. The plywood panels that clad the walls connect via finger joinery, or abut each other like jaws of a vise or clamp. Each panel rests upon custom thumbscrews hardware that are large hand-pawed forms with faux-upholstery akin to jewelry boxes or glove compartments.

The walls act as hybrids between wallpapered accents and pegboard. Threaded inserts perforate the panels, manifesting the repeating cartoon of a hammer. Each hole readily accepts a bolt for a fastening opportunity and every instance of the hammer is a vehicle for new content to adhere to it’s image. 

Five Brass slabs containing relief and engraving are clamped to the walls. Each surface locates conversation between indexical tool events and their forensic simulation by a robotically-operated cutting tool. The show echoes that of a machinist’s workshop, in which parts and pieces must be forcibly held down in place in order to be worked and shaped, yet in this case the machinist’s jig has become a frozen element of decor.

This is the artists’ second collaboration and the first show that they have had at the gallery.