Marissa Cote
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rissacote@gmail.com
Softening the Future: Whiteness, ceramics,
and radical love with Marissa Cote
Will Hutnick
2018
Godine Vintage Furniture
Godine Family Gallery
Godine Family Gallery: Looking Back, Looking Forward
at the Wassaic Project)
There is a societal reluctance to talk about “whiteness,” let alone the privilege that comes with being white. There is also the lack of even the acknowledgement that there is such a thing as white privilege. Instead of thinking about whiteness (and its consequences) and being open to engage in difficult and awkward conversations, the pendulum tends to swing in the opposite direction and most people crawl further back into their (white) shells. Thankfully, there are many scholars and activists who are actively working to unpack these issues and bring them to the forefront of contemporary conversations about race in the United States. And there are also visual artists like Marissa Cote who grapple with these
hard truths in very nuanced ways.
You might think that an art practice that takes these truths as its starting point would be loud, or ostentatious, overtly political, heavy. And although Cote does employ physically heavy materials like ceramics and hardware within her work, her focus is on a much softer (and hopeful) fare. The juxtaposition of soft and hard - and of probably the biggest “let’s not
talk about this” obstacle facing the US right now, the base acknowledgment of the US’s history of violence and enslaved people - is investigated through bright colors and a fiber-based practice. It is one of the strategic ways in which Cote makes these challenging topics
approachable and accessible. Instead of remaining grounded solely in identity politics, though, Cote uses this framework to imagine new possibilities, new ways of seeing, that is less reliant upon pre-existing power structures and more centered around love.
Cote’s physical touch is light, almost effervescent. So much of her work is about the very nature of touch (and by extension, of care): the handling of soft textiles and fibers, as well as the ways in which we as humans are - or are not - connecting with one another. There is a kind of poetry in the way that Cote transforms recognizable, everyday materials. Metal
brackets and hardware that are typically not visible are transformed into hand-
formed ceramics with beautiful, wonky, uneven edges. In one work, 4 lovingly mis-shapen ceramic brackets are loosely screwed in together to create an open rectangle, with a quilted fabric composed of various shades of brown, and one punchy icy purple, loosely draped over
the top. Like the power structures and notions of white privilege that Cote is interested in interrogating, and ideally dismantling, the entire work is on the brink of collapse, welcoming what comes after.
It is in this approachability - and instability - as well as the artist’s softening of materials and expectations, where, ideally, hard and uncomfortable conversations can be exchanged. Where we can be guided to think about alternative frameworks centered around radical love
and solidarity. According to the artist: “if we are to transform our future together, what
work must we do beyond acknowledging privilege and positionality? What illusions do we invest in, in order to maintain our belief in our positionality along this hierarchical structure? And how can we begin to crack these illusions, and reallocate our investment?” Now, more
than ever, we need artists like Marissa Cote to encourage us to have these tough
conversations and rethink our future.
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