When artists mine consumer culture for materials, the results often add up to little more than a thin variation or “update” of Pop Art. “Performance Anxiety,” currently on display at the Chelsea-based Stadium gallery, is notable for taking a different approach. Whereas many young Pop artists work with a near absurd reverence to products and branding, the sculptors in this exhibition instead use the synthetic colors and odors of drugstore items like deodorant, mouthwash, and energy drinks to engage inventively with materiality and form. They focus on what artist Steve Bishop described in a recent interview as “the visual and personal language of produced things.”
