Cradle in Abeyance

Exhibition. 5 works on view at ///reply.gaps.down, 5407 WISSAHICKON AVE, Germantown, Westside. 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, the first acquired in August 2025 and the most recent in December 2025; two of them have since been accessioned into the permanent collection. One commissioner: Parks & Recreation. 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. Cradle in Abeyance, No. 1 — Rubber over galvanised steel, riveted, suspended above wood mulch. Accession 18006196. Acquired August 24, 2025. 389 days on view. The split at the seat's left corner is the work's governing passage: the rubber has parted cleanly along the fold, curled outward, and now holds an open lip where the steel beneath catches the light. Three domed rivets remain seated and bright in the same sun that flattens the mulch below into a field of pale wood chips, against which the seat's shadow reads as a single dark rectangle. Suspended at the height of an absent occupant, the piece registers as a still life in mid-air rather than an object at rest. The museum preserves it as the first and most intact member of a group in which the same apparatus continues to yield distinct works.
2. Cradle in Abeyance, No. 2 — Moulded rubber, galvanised chain, wood-chip substrate. Accession 18022757. Acquired September 2, 2025. 380 days on view. The seat's rubber wall has parted in two places, and the larger opening has weathered to a smooth rounded contour, its edges rolled rather than jagged, so that the substrate below reads as part of the form itself. Suspended just above the chips, the bucket retains its full curve while enclosing almost nothing; the yoke and chain remain taut and correctly hung. Read against its companion work, this piece shows the tear at a further stage of rounding. The museum preserves it as the more resolved of the two apertures.
3. Cradle in Abeyance, No. 3 — Moulded polyethylene, full-depth fissure, abraded surface, direct sunlight. Accession 18222963. Acquired October 6, 2025. 346 days on view. The blue of the moulded surface is interrupted at centre by a split that passes entirely through the material, its edges stressed to a pale whitish line where the polyethylene has been drawn apart. Around it the surface carries a dense field of fine scratches, laid down in overlapping directions, and at the left margin the colour has worn through to blistered grey. Read against its siblings in the series, this work is the one in which the fissure reaches full depth, and the museum preserves it for that transition from marked surface to open aperture.
4. Cradle in Abeyance, No. 4 — Stone retaining wall, chain and post barrier, snow cover, nocturnal illumination. Accession 19086543. Acquired December 16, 2025. 275 days on view. The curved stone wall carries a continuous ridge of undisturbed snow along its cap, a smooth line broken only where the pale pier meets it at an abrupt right angle. Below, the chain sags between its posts and disappears into drifted snow, while the adjacent walkway has been compacted to ice by passage. Seen against its siblings in the series, this view is the one in which the barrier reads as ornament rather than boundary, the chain hanging at a height the snow has already overtaken. The museum preserves the work for the clarity with which cold weather renders the wall's geometry legible.
5. Cradle in Abeyance, No. 5 — Trodden snow, ice crust, granite gate piers, overhead conductors. Accession 19203253. Acquired December 28, 2025. 263 days on view. Snow has been walked into a grey crust across the whole triangular pad, holding the shallow ruts and scuffs of passage rather than any surface beneath it, and a thin skirt of ice runs out over the curb toward the crosswalk. Two granite gate piers stand at the right edge, their carved caps framing an entrance whose path is indistinguishable from the ground around it; overhead, the pole's wires cross the composition in flat diagonals and the signal holds a single red lens against the overcast. In this passage of the series the ice performs the work's structure, recording weight without retaining any sign of maintenance. The museum preserves it as the series' most reduced state, in which the ground itself carries the record.

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