“Pleasures and Possible Celebrations”: Rosemary Mayer’s Temporary Monuments, 1977-1981 is an exhibition at Gordon Robichaux in New York.

Rosemary Mayer (1943–2014) was a prolific artist involved in the New York art scene beginning in the late 1960s. Most well-known for her large-scale sculptures using fabric as the primary material, she also created works on paper, artist books, and outdoor installations, exploring themes of temporality, history, and biography. A pioneer of the feminist art movement, she was a founding member of A.I.R. Gallery—the first cooperative gallery for women in the U.S.—where she presented one of her earliest exhibitions. Gordon Robichaux’s presentation is Mayer’s most recent in New York since a 2016 show at Southfirst Gallery, and will be followed by a survey at the Swiss Institute in September 2021. 

Installed across both spaces at Gordon Robichaux, the exhibition features a selection of drawings and documentation related to ephemeral installations and unrealized projects with balloons from the late 1970s including Spell, Some Days in April, and Connections, part of a body of work she called “Temporary Monuments.” This is the first occasion the work will be on display since it was originally exhibited in the late 1970s and early ’80s. Two related sculptures will also be on view. Scarecrow (model) for a field, made with fabric, wood, and ribbons, is a proposal for an unrealized Temporary Monument and the only extant sculpture from this period. 17th Street Ghost is a site-responsive presentation of one of Mayer’s ephemeral “Ghosts” sculptures, conceived for this exhibition by the Estate of Rosemary Mayer.

The exhibition runs until June 20, 2021.