Composition in White and Blue, Nocturnal

Exhibition. 5 works on view at ///behind.baked.terms, 257 W WINGOHOCKING ST, Feltonville. The wall is circular: walking in either direction returns to the title wall. Use Tab to move between works and Enter to read a work’s wall label. Arrow keys move along the wall.

Five works at a single point in the city, all acquired in October 2025. One commissioner: Police Department. The museum did not solicit any of them.

The works are exhibited in order of acquisition. Visitors will notice that the subject does not change; the museum invites them to consider what does.

1. Composition in White and Blue, Nocturnal, No. 1 — Automotive, polyethylene sheeting, adhesive tape, nocturnal exposure. Accession 18318527. Acquired October 9, 2025. 343 days on view. The blue sheeting taped across the trunk lid is the work's organising element: a rectangle of saturated colour set against white paint, its taped edges already curling away from the surface. Behind it the rear quarter has folded in on itself, the wheel arch opened to bare metal and a length of exhaust pipe lowered until it nearly touches the asphalt. Photographed at night, the single lit taillight lens reads as the brightest passage in an otherwise desaturated field. The museum preserves the work for the tension between the improvised covering and the damage it does not cover.
2. Composition in White and Blue, Nocturnal, No. 2 — Sedan, blue polyethylene glazing, collision deformation, nocturnal exposure. Accession 18318528. Acquired October 9, 2025. 343 days on view. The work is glazed in blue sheeting drawn tight across every window opening, and the flash finds it as a run of vertical creases that reads, at this angle, as a continuous band of colour above the white flank. Forward of that band the front quarter panel has folded inward and torn, leaving pale fractured edges and dark filaments hanging over the tire, while the rear half of the body remains uncreased and holds the light evenly. Seen against its predecessor in the series, the sheeting is tauter here and the torn panel has drawn further back from the wheel. The museum preserves the piece for the clarity of that division between intact plane and ruined one.
3. Composition in White and Blue, Nocturnal, No. 3 — Sedan, polyethylene sheeting, deformed sheet metal, nocturnal illumination. Accession 18429115. Acquired October 14, 2025. 338 days on view. The blue sheeting stretched across the window openings is the work's governing element: pulled tight and taped at the pillars, it reads at night as a single luminous plane broken by vertical folds, and it converts the glazing line into an unbroken band of colour against the white body. Forward of the front door the panel collapses inward, its torn edge shedding pale fibre and dark fragments over a wheel that remains undamaged and correctly seated. The museum preserves the piece for this division of labour between its halves — one side of the composition ruined, the other newly finished in plastic — and for the way darkness holds the two in the same frame.
4. Composition in White and Blue, Nocturnal, No. 4 — Sedan, white with blue vinyl, collision deformation, night exposure. Accession 18429117. Acquired October 14, 2025. 338 days on view. The blue band down the trunk lid is the work's organising element: it runs straight and unbroken to the point where the right rear quarter folds inward, and the contrast between the intact stripe and the torn metal beside it establishes the composition's two registers. Night light flattens the white bodywork toward grey while catching the exposed edges of the crumpled panel, so that the damage reads as the brightest passage in the frame. A length of undercarriage hangs free below the split bumper, nearly touching the asphalt. The museum preserves the work for the precision with which an applied decorative line meets an accidental one.
5. Composition in White and Blue, Nocturnal, No. 5 — Sedan, white enamel, blue polyethylene glazing, nocturnal exposure. Accession 18429118. Acquired October 14, 2025. 338 days on view. The blue sheeting drawn across the window openings is the work's dominant passage: stretched tight over the door frames, creased into long vertical folds, and reflecting the available light in short white streaks along each ridge. Against this the body panels read as an unbroken field of white until the forward quarter, where the metal has been opened and torn material hangs loose above the tyre. Compared with earlier works in the series, the sheeting has slackened and now takes light differently, softening rather than mirroring. The museum preserves the piece for the contrast it sustains between an intact rear half and a ruined front, held together in a single plane of colour.

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