In forever more, Inga Danysz's second solo exhibition at Good Weather (and first solo exhibition in Tokyo, co-hosted by Lavender Opener Chair), the artist presents three new works. The first is a stainless steel sculpture designed to accommodate up to eight guests for dinner at Tohmei Diner (a restaurant operated by Lavender Opener Chair co-founder and artist/chef Tatsushiko Togashi). This work is a modular series with four parts present in the exhibition—each individually and collectively titled Esophagus.

Each part—unique in their patina, but standard in their form—can be mounted on the wall when not in use, converting it from a functional dining surface into a sculptural tombstone. In contrast to Danysz's previous work—like Sarcophagus or Ladder—Esophagus emphasizes themes of sustenance and communion adjacent with the artist's consistent concerns with labor, consumption, and control.

Another work, titled Kyuodai, is a transformative action. Danysz has relocated tatami mats from a typical Japanese room into the gallery, altering the ritual of dining at Tohmei Diner: shifting the experience from the counter to the floor of the gallery space with traditional Japanese restaurant zashiki style seating.

Additionally, a third work—a photograph documenting the original location of the tatami mats—stands as evidence of the artist's action: the space, now emptied, invokes a sense of absence; or a serene release. The installation is further enriched by the soundtrack Regarding Films compiled by John Roberts (Brunette Editions).

I think the most traumatic scene in Tim Burton's 'Sleepy Hollow', is a scene where juvenile Ichabod Crane sees his mother, condemned as a witch, burst out of an iron maiden drenched in blood, her fresh corpse covered in flies.

When I worked in a torture museum, this horrific device was undoubtedly my favourite. Its questionable authenticity shrouds it in mystery. I can't resist the comparison to Danysz's totemic sculptures. Resembling ancient sarcophagi or some nameless cosmonauts' casket, the works pull me towards the immutable question: what we do in life, does it count in eternity?

The Pharaohs decorated their mighty tombs with magic spells to protect their souls in the afterlife. Danysz's anachronistic sculptures unite us with these genderless, anonymous shapes. Rendering our bodies equal and cooperative, in an almost communist aesthetic.

'In Ancient Rome' is a playground for associative contradictions. Are they macabre devices or some armoured shield for the body, protecting us from the horrors of the outside world. I see the sculptures as transformational spaces for latent interaction.

Mary Furniss, 2022 — Production Assistance & 3D Modelling: Christoph

In 'Remedies for Vertigo' infrastructure is characterised as an idealised system of control, where water and bodies and thoughts all run in the designated direction. But that's not how I feel. I am the scum in the pipe. An artist that pays low taxes, gets fired for drinking on the job, lives off benefits sometimes and I go backwards more often than forwards. I'm hard for this immaculate tube to digest. Perhaps I should censor myself, be pristine and clean and go along with the current...

Although the glass drain pipe gracefully, and almost imperceptibly, weaves itself around the exhibition space, it feels like a spatio-temporal contraction, slowly tightening itself around me. The pipes subtly dominate the space and slowly I begin to internalise the direction it has laid out before me. I want to know where it ends. Maybe it never ends. Perhaps it is designed to keep me going forward, prescribe me the right choice to make and give me function and stability when the world outside is spinning out of control.

Mary Furniss, 2021

The Italian Machine, 2018 – Ongoing, Fondazione Antonio Ratti, Como, Italy (2019) — Download poster

With Eva Barto, Tyler Coburn, Marie Cool Fabio Balducci and Adriana Lara.

With Ron Ewert, Amy Garofano, and Matt Siegle.

Directed by Marc von Schlegell, Michael Krebber, presenting work by Susan Ciancialo and ephemera by Jack Smith. Performance by the Pure Fiction Seminar, Portikus, Frankfurt (2012)