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Effective January 1: Masks are Optional in VisArts’ Classrooms and Studios
By Mark Jenkins
October 21, 2025
JUGGLING MINIMALISM AND ABSURDISM, Danni O’Brien grafts abandoned consumer products into sculptural assemblages. As seen in VisArts’ “Toning Systems,” the Baltimore artist’s fabrications can be ungainly. But O’Brien usually combines objects of a single color or in a close range of hues, which gives the resulting contraptions a certain visual rigor. The exhibition also features three line drawings that present the artist’s purposeless hybrid devices as if they’re inventions potentially worthy of patents.
As the show’s title hints, most of the original items were made for athletic activities or cosmetic effects. The ingredients of the 3D collages include weights, a thigh master, a yoga ball, hair curlers, an ergonomic back supporter, and a diagram from a 1970 patent for a bust enhancer. Such gadgets for enhancing the human body have now been gathered into “cyborgian creatures” — according to Maura Callahan’s essay on the artist’s work — with possible existences beyond their intended purposes. Those existences, however, are just whimsical fantasies. Some of O’Brien’s gizmos look as if they might be useful, but they’re actually all form and no function.
Danni O’Brien: Toning Systems Through Oct. 26 at Concourse Gallery, VisArts, 155 Gibbs St., Rockville. www.visartscenter.org. 301.315.8200.
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