Amber Crabbe Catalogues the Haunting, Broken Detritus of Relationships Past

All photos by Amber Crabbe

What he curled up with when we put him down.

What do you do with tangible mementos of grief, love, and loss that accompany the end of a relationship? Do you tuck the love letters away in some dark corner of your closet, perhaps never again to see the light of day? Do you sell the books, the jewelry? Do you rip the reminders to pieces, or burn them in a Craft-esque ritual like I did with my high school boyfriend's gifts? For "Inventory," Amber Crabbe turned her mementos into a heart-rending visual mixtape of broken promises and painful memories. Crabbe takes common, yet heavily symbolic objects, smashes them to bits, frames them on a black backdrop, and provides a brief description of the detritus. The captions not only unlock the mysteries of the broken bits, but offer alarming, evocative, soul-crushing glimpses into some of life's most fragile moments. For instance, a yellow mess of paper reveals: "I saved the wrapping even though he took back the gift." And a broken lipstick tube becomes "Her dead mother's lipstick (it looked better on me)." 

See Crabbe's series in-person at the group exhibition, The San Francisco Foundation and SOMArts' Murphy and Cadogan Contemporary Art Awards Exhibition, on view at SOMArts through October 2, 2012.

This is also the exhibition accompanying Bay Area Trajectories, which we told you about recently.

Click through to see more of Crabbe's series.

Rescued from the sidewalk at the end of the birthday no one remembered.

The lens through which I saw the world for 592 days.

The last one of the season, picked before he could pollinate it.

35mg during a fit of sobriety.

Left over from the last time I quit for good.

Location Info

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SOMArts Cultural Center

934 Brannan, San Francisco, CA

Category: General

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