Lily Cox-Richard’s exhibition Weep Holes addresses ideas of stewardship, beauty and threat, collective action, and building and dismantling. While in residence at the Recycled Artists in Residency Program (RAIR) in Philadelphia, PA, the sculptor became fascinated by a giant bale of tinsel she found, and how the material continually transforms from its use in celebrations to trash. This object becomes the centerpiece of a series of new works in Weep Hole, all of which reflect Cox-Richard’s ongoing interest in materiality, reuse, and how we value objects. Playing with scale, the works on view range from tiny to outsized–including a 16-foot-tall Shaker broom, made of recycled material and made in residence at MASS MoCA. These works invite the viewer to consider their physical presence and place in the world vis-a-vie the sculptures on view.

Download a pdf of the Lily Cox-Richard: Weep Holes gallery guide here.

Watch more videos about Lily Cox-Richard: Weep Holes on MASS MoCA’s YouTube channel.

In the News
Everything’s scary — but don’t let it break you, Murray Whyte, The Boston Globe

About the Artist
Lily Cox-Richard (she/her/LCR) makes sculptures and installations that take up details of cultural and material histories to explore porousness, energy exchange, and paths of resistance. LCR has been awarded an Artadia grant, a Smithsonian Artist Research Fellowship, a postdoctoral fellowship in the University of Michigan’s Society of Fellows, and residencies at the Core Program, Millay Colony, RAIR Philadelphia, and the MacDowell Colony. Recent solo exhibitions include Yvonne (Guatemala City), Artpace (San Antonio, TX), Diverseworks (Houston, TX), Hirschl & Adler Modern (New York, NY), The Blanton Museum of Art (Austin, TX). LCR studies, forages, and practices in Tsenacomoco territory / Richmond, VA, on land that, for thousands of years, has been inhabited and cared for by Indigenous people, including the Pamunkey, Monacan, Chickahominy, and many other tribes untold and forcibly disappeared.

The artist would like to thank CultureWorks Richmond, Nomaco, RAIR Philly, VCUarts, and the Virginia Museum of Fine Arts.

She Wolf + Lower Figs (Detail), 2019
scagliola: plaster, rabbit skin glue, pigment
21.5 x 46.25 x 19.5 in
Photo Credit: Colin Doyle