Erika Verzutti's 'Chunk' exhibition at Misako & Rosen transforms studio detritus into wall-based 'Pet Cemeteries'

Erika Verzutti's exhibition 'Chunk' at Misako & Rosen in Tokyo runs through April 22, featuring wall-based sculptural assemblages she calls 'Pet Cemeteries'. These new works mark a shift from her earlier floor-based sculptures that resembled disorderly graveyards with animal-shaped monuments. In 2008, she presented such pieces at Fortes Vilaça in São Paulo, where bronze cats and pebble poodles served as totems for lost pets. The current exhibition encases fragments from older or abandoned artworks within blocks of rock clay, preserving materials that had accumulated in her studio. Elements like papier-mâché curls and ceramic forms resembling eggs or tongues are embedded in these clay blocks, decorated with finger marks and daubs of color, including occasional bright pinks. Verzutti describes these materials as 'pets' themselves, having grown fond of the studio detritus over time. Some fragments might have otherwise appeared in her concurrent show at Andrew Kreps in New York, which closed on March 30. The artist's work evolves from gravestones marking absence to mausoleums containing material presence, emphasizing preservation over memorialization.