Hope and Sulk
Collaboration with Alex Schady
Stichting Outline, Amsterdam, 2001
Expanding her vocabulary of site-specific slashed-wall architectural interventions, Hawrysio erected a temporary plasterboard and timber-frame wall directly across the threshold dividing the gallery’s two primary exhibition spaces. Standing ten feet high by three feet wide, the structure functioned simultaneously as a physical barrier and a conceptual bridge. In accordance with a directive to colour the object after the surrounding environment’s most dominant feature, the wall was painted a vivid green — a direct compression of the park landscape outside into the white cube of the gallery.
Using a machete, Hawrysio disrupted one surface of the structure with arcing movements akin to bushwhacking in a forest. This performance of controlled violence subverted the clean geometry of the institutional space, transforming a flat architectural partition into a visceral, scarred topography. On the reverse side, the wall hosted a contrasting work in pink plasticine by artist Alex Schady, presenting a stark juxtaposition of material texture, colour, and artistic impulse across a single, shared boundary.