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Effective January 1: Masks are Optional in VisArts’ Classrooms and Studios
By Ian
October 2o, 2025
“Danni O’Brien: Toning Systems” (through October 26), VisArts, Rockville, Maryland.
Many reading this will have already made the trek to Rockville any number of times to catch the bus to Glenstone and get in without a ticket. If you haven’t stuck around for a show over at VisArts after the bus deposits you back in this slice of suburban urbanism, the newest exhibition by Danni O’Brien is as good a reason as any to stay for a moment. The recent winner of Bethesda’s Trawick Prize, O’Brien is hitting some home runs here.
The show in Rockville consists of several assemblage sculptures and wall pieces, made of found objects primarily from home exercise equipment and home decor, along with a smattering of dried organic objects like gourds and seed pods. There is no clear function to most of these reconstituted machines, many of which teeter uncomfortably between Seussian and sexual in a way that can throw you off balance when you first begin to notice their details. But was there ever really any use to these objects in the first place?
Their use of modified organic materials really heightens the tension in these sculptures for me, making them feel more anchored, even more alive in the gallery space. The approach to the work is all giddy wonder; the reality, on closer inspection, can make your stomach flip as you try to work out what you’re being presented with and why it seems so alien yet so familiar.
I’m picking up lessons learned from Eva Hesse (an influence the artist notes), Paul Thek, Cady Noland, along with more recent entrants like Cajsa von Zeipel’s fleshy internet-infused sculptures and, in particular, Rachel Youn’s vintage electric ecosexuality. But there’s something a bit more sinister at play here than in Youn’s work. The detritus from which O’Brien builds, all gathered at the bleeding edge of capitalism and self-improvement, hints at something more shameful, anguished, hidden among the exuberant hues and childlike awe of these wobbling works.
Read in 202 Arts Review
