Assembly at the Guardrail

Exhibition. 6 works on view at ///filled.lofts.talked, 314 W ERIE AVE, Franklinville. 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.

Six works at a single point in the city, the first acquired in August 2025 and the most recent in November 2025; four of them have since been accessioned into the permanent collection. 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. Assembly at the Guardrail, No. 1 — Automotive enamel, chalking red finish, steel guardrail, stationary arrangement. Accession 17968930. Acquired August 5, 2025. 408 days on view. The red enamel of the hood has chalked to a flat, powdery finish while the door panels still hold some gloss, so the work reads as two tones of the same colour meeting at the fender seam. Its front end is the most worked passage: the grey bumper valance has been pushed out of alignment, a light bar sits low behind the grille, and loose papers have collected against the inside of the windshield. Paired with the darker vehicle behind it along the same rail, the piece establishes the frontal, shoulder-parked orientation that organises the series. The museum preserves it as the first and most saturated element of that arrangement.
2. Assembly at the Guardrail, No. 2 — Recreational vehicle, corrugated aluminium, reflective sheeting, roadside deposit. Accession 18014902. Acquired August 28, 2025. 385 days on view. The windshield has been sealed from within by a sheet of reflective foil, which turns the largest plane of the composition opaque and pale blue and refuses the view inward that the glass was built to allow. Below it the front bumper has dropped away from its mounts and rests at an angle over a low mound of bagged material on the shoulder, so that the vehicle appears to be settling forward into what has collected beneath it. Read against its companion works at the same barrier, this piece is the one that has turned its face away. The museum preserves it for the completeness of that closure.
3. Assembly at the Guardrail, No. 3 — Automotive, oxidising chrome, paper accumulation, full midday exposure. Accession 18045634. Acquired September 11, 2025. 371 days on view. The work's red bodywork holds its gloss under direct sun, which sharpens the contrast with the dulled chrome and the grey scuffing along the lower bumper. Papers gathered beneath the windshield wiper have bleached toward the colour of the glass behind them, forming the only soft passage in an otherwise hard-edged composition. Read against its siblings at the guardrail, this piece is the most forward in the line and the most saturated, and the museum regards the accumulation at the windshield as its principal surface event.
4. Assembly at the Guardrail, No. 4 — Automotive, plywood superstructure, oxidising, stationary. Accession 18045639. Acquired September 11, 2025. 371 days on view. The work's dark bodywork is scored across the hood and door with pale abraded streaks, a scattered, almost gestural mark-making that reads lighter than the panels beneath it. Above the bed sits a plywood box painted flat black and framed in steel, a carpentered addition whose flat planes answer the rounded automotive forms below with some severity. Compared with its siblings in the series, this work is the most heavily built up, having accumulated a second architecture on top of the first. The museum preserves it for that layering, and for the rusted steel wheel that anchors the composition at its lowest point.
5. Assembly at the Guardrail, No. 5 — Recreational vehicle, fractured glazing, mounted curb, overcast light. Accession 18317869. Acquired October 9, 2025. 343 days on view. The work's front wheels have climbed the raised sidewalk, tilting the whole body away from the roadway so that its long grey flank runs at a slight angle to the guardrail behind it. The windshield has fractured into a pale opaque field that no longer transmits the interior, and the side door stands open a few inches against the blue lower panel. Read against the other works held at this railing, this is the largest in volume and the only one to have left the roadbed entirely. The museum preserves it as the anchoring form of the series.
6. Assembly at the Guardrail, No. 6 — Recreational vehicle, stationary, reflective insulation, oxidising trim. Accession 18747382. Acquired November 6, 2025. 315 days on view. The reflective insulation pressed against the inside of the windshield is the work's defining passage: a silver-blue plane that reads as glass, as water, and finally as refusal, returning the daylight without admitting it. Below, a loose length of bumper trim hangs free of its fasteners, and the horizontal striping along the coachwork has dulled unevenly where sun has fallen longest. Positioned parallel to the guardrail and sharing its line, the work sits in relation to its siblings in the series as the largest and most opaque member of the group, the one that most completely encloses its own interior.

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