Fill’d Them, Emptied Them is an exhibition of cast sculpture that foregrounds dynamics of positive and negative space, putting weight, air, surface and points of contact in equal priority with the ideas and content of each work. This exhibition emphasizes the physicality of the sculptures—their qualities of shape and mass, but also the actions that create these qualities. Scraping, pouring, pressing, peeling, breaking, popping, and lots of waiting, are movements in these works, which range broadly in method and style. To further distinguish the traces of these actions, the artists molds are included in the exhibition as archival material, adjacent to the artworks.

This exhibition was conceptualized within the context of Shisanwu, a sculpture fabrication studio. In addition to Shisanwu, numerous artist studios are housed on the edges of Sheerly Touch-Ya Warehouse, which primarily acts as a distribution center for an eponymous hosiery fashion company. Inside the warehouse, activity is intense and expansive. This site of production is the impetus for a show focused on an art form inherently fabricated. At the invitation of Shisanwu, and among the thousands of boxes holding Sheerly Touch-Ya’s pantyhose, Fill’d Them, Emptied Them takes its shape. In exhibiting typologies of cast sculpture, it also aims to complicate its methodologies. Many of the works are not easily classified, and yet the sculptor’s tools, in this case their molds, can serve as secret keys and tidbits of history.

The works are united in their strong relation to interior and exterior space—a dynamic that is both evocative of the body and also directive to the body, as we encounter the objects. On another hand, cast sculpture allows for a reverberation between the frameworks of interior and exterior space, as a negative generates a positive, and vice versa. The artists here have different interests—examining implications of replication, creating new units of measurement for social structures, siphoning an object or an idea from the past into the future. All are emphasizing the transferal of meaning when one thing is impressed onto another, over time.

The title of this show comes from Walt Whitman’s poem, “Song of Myself,” first published in 1855. It famously coined the line “I contain multitudes”—apt as a description of the dynamic captured in both cast and mold. Full of language applicable to gestures of cast sculpture, the title is pulled from the following line.

The past and present wilt—I have fill’d them, emptied them, And proceed to fill my next fold of the future.

Fill’d Them, Emptied Them is curated by Isabella Achenbach. It is presented by Shisanwu at Sheerly Touch-Ya Warehouse from May 31-June 28, 2026. It includes works by Matthew Barney, Michaela Bathrick, Kanoa Baysa, Ben R. Clement, Kea de Buretel, John Duff, Keith Edmier, Jacob Jackmauh, Lotus Kang, Coco Klockner, Helmut Lang, Angelika Loderer, Grant Mooney, Jean-Luc Moulène, Justin Nalley, Erik Nilson, Dominic Palarchio, Andrew Ross, and Yu Ji.

For inquiries please contact studio@shisanwu.net & isabella.achenbach@gmail.com