The window of Les Atelier Courbet in West Chelsea currently showcases a single item: a large stone boulder with functioning wooden drawers. Niche Drawers has been stopping passersby in their tracks ever since it was placed there to announce the opening of “Dichotomies,” a show featuring the work of Ethan Stebbins.
Stebbins’ pieces, sourced by the likes of Nicole Hollis and Julie Hillman, defy logic. Massive granite boulders are pierced by wood beams; benches seem to effortlessly pass through stone. It begs the question: how does Stebbins persuade such rigid forms to coexist in this way, to settle into one another as if it’s what nature always intended. The effect, one viewer noted at the opening, was “like two stubborn materials somehow agreed to meet each other halfway.”
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