Francis Irv's 'A String of Tongueless Bells' Explores Group Show Dynamics Through Silent Objects

Francis Irv in New York presented 'A String of Tongueless Bells,' a group exhibition running from July 13 to August 17. The show deliberately omitted a press release, encouraging viewers to engage directly with individual works. Win McCarthy contributed two sculptures: 'Untitled (Orange Angles)' (2024), a 69-inch-tall welded aluminum ruler sculpture, and '7 x Lucy' (2024), a stack of nine soldered eyeglass pairs. Phung-Tien Phan's 'Senior' (2024) features a table saw blade embedded in a wooden dining table, suggesting domestic tension. Osama Al Rayyan exhibited a small untitled bronze sculpture (2024) depicting a sleeping child with a textured, dark finish. Paul Sietsema displayed a painting of a rotary telephone rendered in greyscale with crimson undertones, based on a photograph of a painted, unplugged phone. The exhibition's title references Diane Seuss's 2022 poem 'Allegory,' which describes 'a place filled with plotless stories.' The gallery's dark wooden fittings evoked a 1980s detective's office, enhancing the show's mysterious atmosphere. Works were interpreted as anxious assemblages or pointed interruptions, with the exhibition exploring how group shows can either stifle individual pieces or create a cohesive, muted chorus. The presentation emphasized associative readings and attention to form and process over narrative explanation.