Portable Coordinates: Crystalle Lacouture: Solo Exhibition
Crystalle Lacouture unveiled an entirely new body of work with Portable Coordinates, the gallery’s second solo exhibition with Lacouture and first solo presentation at the new Downtown Boston location. The breadth of materials and formats included—illuminated sculptures, paintings on paper and on board, woodblock prints, MAMA Drawings on scorekeeper shooting targets, and flags that are both artwork and wearable pieces—reflected her ongoing interest in how elemental symbols offer an interpretive experience of navigation, connections, memorials, and care.
Portable Coordinates was inspired by the book The Stars: A New Way to See Them, published in 1952 by H. A. Rey, which opened up the layperson’s understanding of the constellations. According to Lacouture, “I’m deeply inspired by Rey’s poetic and accessible translation of something as vast and intangible as constellations into portable and highly relatable narrative images.” Lacouture views the story of H. A. and Margret Reys (who created the Curious George books and were long-time residents of Harvard Square, Cambridge) as a truly American one: they were refugees who settled in the local area and left a lasting cultural impact.
Central to the exhibition were a group of six reworked vintage nautical signal flags, titled Free Beacons, that were stretched across wooden obelisks—reminiscent of lighthouses or navigational signals. On the 250th anniversary of America’s founding, the Free Beacons evoked Revolutionary signal lanterns and analog navigational code systems. Also featured, Lacouture’s fourth large-scale monument in an ongoing series, Half Mast 52 Weeks (Somebody’s Baby), bears a compilation of 52 floral drawings mounted to suggest a flag at half mast. The support for each drawing is a small NRA pistol target sheet that represents weekly tallies of children in America killed by gun violence in 2025; each white flower represents a teenager; each yellow flower represents a younger child, asking the viewer to translate an abstract statistic to a mapped symbol to the recognition of a young life lost. Lacouture expanded on her series of Flags to Fold in Pocket with Night Sky Maps, which are portable maps stamped with star symbols on a cosmic background, each constellation labeled using its common and Latin name. Made with delicate Sekishu paper, the material’s durability is enhanced by manipulating, folding, and dyeing it dozens of times—whether carried in back pocket, framed, or crumpled up, these weathered and fabric-like maps are meant to serve as guides for finding light amidst dark times.
