Susan Tabachnick’s Magic Tricks

It’s not quite Blake’s Marriage of Heaven and Hell, but Susan Tabachnick’s latest work is both similar and remarkable in that it takes once-discarded detritus of industry and science, and reassembles often disparate elements into a new, poetic, and cohesive reality. Heavenly…in a way…

She illuminates obscure and forgotten traits of various elements to create a new union – a new meaning for them – in an elegant format of precision and grace. There is a blending and integration of these oddly connected gadgets that are brought together under her skillful assemblage in order to “form a more perfect union.”

Tabachnick’s method is her madness: she somehow envisions a new vitality for these once forgotten utensils. Her video, Object Memory, is an object lesson itself for the viewer. We see rusted train tracks, old bent metal parts, once-useful colorful pen holders and unnamed whatchamacallits come alive in Tabachnick’s talented hands. Without actually changing or reshaping these tools and gizmos she infuses them with new heart and new meaning, often by means of her thoughtful placement and quirky design.

It’s a bit of magic done through sleight-of-hand and mind; and artist’s way of seeing anew. This work is not to be missed.​

—Herm Freeman, Westport, CT | June 2024