New York
For eight years, Sacha Ingber juggled art-making with part-time work as a prop stylist on a Food Network cooking show. This might explain the recurring plates and utensils in her current exhibition “Two” (on view through May 9, 2026). The Hungry Caterpillar (2026), for instance, presents a table setting turned upright, strewn with napkins, and colored by a child’s whimsy. In Backgammon: Knives vs. Forks vs. Spoons (2026), flatware shapes supplant the triangles of a game board, while one of the table legs takes the form of a giant spoon.
Ingber’s culinary background might also explain why she likens the structure of her wall-hung slab sculptures (like The Hungry Caterpillar) to that of a frittata. Rather than eggs studded with potato or scattered with parsley, polyurethane resin is embedded with pieces of ceramic, metal, plaster, and other assorted objects. Some elements are placed in the clay mold before the resin is poured in, while others are sewn or attached after it is dry.
Just as Ingber’s life spans two countries—she grew up in Washington, DC, lives in New York, and regularly visits relatives in Brazil—her work straddles the worlds of old and new, combining natural and industrial materials, mixing handmade and mass-produced objects, blending rustic heritage with modern culture. Farewell Fazenda (2026), another resin slab piece, commemorates a family farmhouse outside Rio that fell into disrepair and was repossessed by the government. The work collects indoor and outdoor fragments of the residence and turns them into a frozen vista of the past, bisected by a red steel rod. Within a single frame, we see tin-cast parrots perching beneath blooms of weeping bottlebrush and a chair made of woven rattan—that ubiquitous material of life in the tropics—resting on a two-toned hardwood floor.
Another current that courses through Ingber’s work is feminine strength, often in tribute to women in her family. In Marzita & Lucia (2026), she re-creates garments worn by her maternal grandmother and grand-aunt (sisters who still live together in Brazil) and sets them into the pages of an open book. Intriguingly, the work presents three spines in parallel: two backbones peeking out from behind the clothing, with the spiral in between binding the pages of what could ostensibly be a family archive.
A spine offers strength through stillness, its stability supporting the freedom of other moving parts. In February Mortal Coil (2022), the spine of a calendar allows an earthly soul to withstand the frenzy of passing days. This same steadiness sustains a home in Subindo na montanha da mamãe (Climbing Mama’s Mountain, 2026). The earthen sculpture, with its womanly figure and undulating roof, alludes to Oscar Niemeyer’s Teatro Popular in Rio, an example of his “form follows feminine” approach to curvaceous architecture.
Through door and window openings, we glimpse two human spines rising side by side. If the first is Ingber’s, to whom does the second belong? The curatorial statement mentions the inspiration of pregnancy—Ingber’s son is now two—but perhaps the companion spine belongs to her mother, whose strength she inherited for her own maternal journey.
