Alberte Tranberg: A third thing. Some topping out

Matéria is pleased to present Alberte Tranberg’s second solo exhibition with the gallery, A third thing. Some topping out, opening on Friday, November 15, from 5-7 pm.

A third thing. Some topping out is the final iteration of a series of spatial contemplations Tranberg has created in the pursuit of converging one's sense of body with the built environment. Through tactile gestures in steel, bronze, and ceramic shell, Tranberg draws a landscape that honors transitional periods in the wake of great loss. Grounded in craft, Tranberg primarily works with structural steel, reflecting familiar architectural forms and textures introducing moments of malleability to challenge notions of rigidity, weight, light, and movement.

Responding to the conventions and properties of materials and making, and with this new body of work presented at Matéria, Tranberg is applying her methodologies to the foundry to challenge the principles of the classical sculpture medium of bronze and lost-wax casting. In this exhibition Tranberg engages with the tree as a symbol of opportunity and progress, halting its idealization in a porcelain shell—a material often associated with temporality. The polished bronze fragments of a blueprint, recontextualized to evoke the fleeting nature of place and memory. Situated within steel silhouettes of rock formations and houses placed in the gallery as signage in passing, mark a transition of a “before” and “after."

A third thing. Some topping out is an inserted sentence and a momentary salute, as the title insinuates, in memory of a person who used to define her lived environment.