By Nick Stolle
Walking into Mark Dagley�s “Structural Solutions” at Minus Space is like accidentally wandering into the middle of a peculiar standoff. Three strong, distinct energies surround you, pushing and pulling, bandying you about.
To your right a hulking, sharp figure, smartly outfitted in what Niele Toroni might refer to as a Red red and a Black black, towers above you. It just fits into the space, a few inches shy of scraping the ceiling. Almost intimidating.
You bounce a few degrees to your right and are softly buffeted around for a while by a big, long grid. A double stripe of off-white separates squares of color, not many of which, if any, are exactly the same hue. The particular dime-store paperback shade of the off-white calls to mind a plaid. A big gaudy handbag or window dressing backdrop pulled out of a department store basement. You feel a little dusty inside, melancholic.
Another pivot puts on offer the most sympathetic, approachable of the three. A mediator, maybe. A shallow rectangle of long, cool blue and yellow diagonal stripes with crisp, meaty L�s incised vertically. Smart and funny, not hard to look at. You could hug the thing.
“Mark Dagley: Structural Solutions,” Minus Space, DUMBO, Brooklyn, NY. Through October 27, 2012. Concurrent with his exhibition at MINUS SPACE, Dagley is also presenting a comprehensive survey “Mark Dagley: 35 Years, 1976-2011” at Kent Place Gallery, Summit, New Jersey. September 10 � October 5, 2012.
