Devoid

Limitations, parameters, order, and control-- these are entities that have enabled humanity to historically fixate or seemingly control the entropy that is existing within the cosmos. With each grasping attempt, whether through art, religion, science, etc., formulae are developed, tested, utilized, and sometimes abandoned. From December 4 to the 28th, the showing space at SAIC features a titled exhibition, Devoid. Here, there currently seems to be a formula that the LeRoy Neiman Center Gallery is following.  In this effort, artists Kate Conlon, Boyang Hou, Kristy Luck, and Steven Vainberg have attempted to fill an existing void that was already empty. In their works, there is clear precision and intent but within the context of a room with white walls, wood floors, and a seemingly-banal street window, they admit that the work will always be “lacking”.

There is an implication of presence when there is absence. “Individually we dwell in darkness, and as a mass we propagate it.”1 Empty or without. Full or amassed. Void.
Empty or without. Full or amassed. Void.

There is an implication of absence when there is presence. I still wonder if the gallery fulfills these suggestions, no matter where or how the art is situated. Printmaker and sculptor, Katie Conlon makes scientific-seeming, rigid works that seem to toe humor and failure as if there is a near nod. works set within the LNC Gallery.  “...the unperceivable infinity of the cosmos.”1 There is a constant theme of duality, especially concerning lightness and/or/versus darkness.

1 - from SUGS:  Whether in our grandest attempts to impose order onto the cosmos or in our quietest moments of introspection, we look to darkness to define our collective and individual experiences. We fear, dream, think, and search for meaning in darkness. Individually we dwell in darkness, and as a mass we propagate it. Through a diverse range of media, artists Kate Conlon (MFA 2014), Boyang Hou (MFA 2014), Kristy Luck (MFA 2014), and Steven Vainberg (MFA 2014) explore the simultaneously abstract and tangible perception of light and dark, the dichotomy of good and evil, and the unperceivable infinity of the cosmos. Together, works interrogate the mind’s tendency to dive headfirst into the void.

Kristy Luck, Untitled, Ink on Panel, 2013

In lightness

In darkness

In sampled plots:

Steven Vainberg Burden/Remains Acrylic on Canvas of the 2013th calendar year
There is a methodical striping and paneling but it is fractured and in two for one whole. One hole

we dig to demonstrate our might and to unearth our many deaths. Layers and levels and coverage.

And memories of movements and reflected, affected epics. On planes. In planes we hover and 

situate constantly, always above, always below with the blue of distance about to break us in two.

Katie Conlon Orbiter 1 Wood Cast Aluminum and Clementine of the 2013th calendar year

I’ve shrunken and may as well be a rock. I’ve grown and maybe this is my planet. There will be a 

banishing of resource extraction and the sequestration (utilization) of animals for the greater good. 

My planet and Yours, how can I respond without taking a quick bite? You taste metallic and dry.

Boyang Hou Strike (1) and (2) Photographs of the 2013th calendar year

Black box. Black box. Laser, interference, diffraction, image and plastic at eye-height. Dangers 

and lightning and bearing witness (more than once). This is in Your line of sight, You are in the line of sight.

Kristy Luck Untitled and Untitled Ink on Panel of the 2013th calendar year

Styrene in black and white. Sister chromatids. The lung tumors in mice.

Devoid

The LeRoy Neiman Center Gallery | December 4 – 28

37 South Wabash Ave., Suite 106, Chicago, IL 60603

Gallery hours: Mon-Fri: 11:00 a.m. - 6:00 pm Sat: 11:00 a.m. - 3:00 p.m. alternate times by appointment

Featured Artists: Kate Conlon - Boyang Hou - Kristy Luck - Steven Vainberg

timeline for exhibiion

timeline:

Sunday, 12/15  noon-2pm, deinstall at Mana (the exhibition space)

Saturday, 12/14  7-10pm, the one night exhibition

Thursday, 12/12  6-9pm, install (come early if you have a difficult installation, make arrangements with me in advance)

Wednesday,  12/4  pick up exhibition posters and distribute/post (emily/kyle/tia)

Tues,  12/3  Gregory drops off poster file to service bureau

Jennifer Chan

Jenninfer Chan is a net artist working primarily in the medium of video. At first glance, her videos had the air of the type of work made to appeal to certain tumblr audiences, a plethora of signifiers sacred to the internet cult trendy youth. Between the homogeneous smily faces, tropical backdrops, vintage computers, anime, and pizza are surprisingly deep themes. Chan's most compelling work takes the form of text rather than visual mash-ups. The text in video Infinite Debt, my favorite video piece on her site, reads "you win if you impress and insult your audience at the same time," at 3:10. This statement feels like an accurate representation of her attitude towards her work, working to dumb itself down and become more palatable, like visual Cheetoes, while simultaneously reaching at deeper issues. The text warns us that making sext work is the only reason to reach a wider audience. I am compelled to believe this is Chan's strategy after reading her compelling and thorough reflection on the current market and modes of expression of net art. 

Chan's essay, titled The Commodification of Net Art functions as a historical account of past and present attitudes and display presence of net art, discussing the physical implications of net art, revisits and reworks ideas of originality and aura, and discusses the importance of the IRL gallery in the niche URL world. Chan is for the monetization of digital work, though admittedly details such as pricing and ownership can be confusing when the work is so seemingly pubic and reproducible. 

As a female, her commentary on struggling to find comfort in one's body is clear in her performance .gif for Rhizome, Cam Twist. Chan aptly states, "Video may be the medium of narcissism, but a narcissist does not a performer make. I hate my body and I am ok with that. I never see myself objectively. It is through a camera I see myself become not-me, or the me I cannot be." The gif itself reads like body-dysmorphia. Her form bends, dissolves, and then recomposes as she turns her head back and forth, a grave disposition on her visage. 

Although her fun transitions and scrolling text create a strong sense of style in her work, it becomes more interesting when it takes things one step further. In the video Infinite Debt, we see a 20 euro bill battered and deep fried, and then served up taco-like on a bed of lettuce. This simple performative action is unique in her work, most of which seem to be composed of stock images and found footage. It is welcome and makes light of student debt and the role of capital in the art market.

Ultimately, I feel Chan's intellect and perspective are extremely strong and demand to be recognized. I feel her art, however, risks becoming lost in its trendy aesthetic. Whether or not this aesthetic is meant to be tongue-in-cheek can be a bit difficult to discern, and because of this, it risks becoming niche and associated with passing trends. I would love to see more text based or performative pieces, as I find these by far the most compelling. 

Links: 

Her website: http://www.jennifer-chan.com/

Her essay: http://jennifer-chan.com/files/Pool_Jennifer_Chan_TheCommodificationofNetArt.pdf

Suicide Narcissus - a different philosophical approach...

The minimalist approach of the exhibition Suicide Narcissus had an instant impact on me the moment I entered the exhibition as I was walking towards a black rectangle leaning against the wall. I began wondering, what  was I about to encounter when getting closer: A threshold to another realm? My own reflection? Something that would reveal itself to me as distance vanished?  As I approached the unreflective work I started to notice white migratory traces, which then turned into dotted lines. Both seemed to randomly trace events as well as the form of the globe in longitudes and latitudes: as if a carefully concerted fragment of the Cosmos had fallen to earth.

I liked the poetic approach of the piece even more when I saw the title: All the Dead Stars. The stars, and earth/universe relationship always takes me instantly to Immanuel Kant, who claimed that there are two things that fill the mind with ever new and increasing admiration and awe: "the starry sky above [..] and the moral law within [..]".

 
http://www.tate.org.uk/context-comment/video/meet-artist-katie-paterson

The poetic entry was very promising. But as I was thinking about the show’s title, its relation to the collapse of stars, and the experience of nature and the questions of moral responsibilities, I was wondering whether and how a dead star and the idea of moral collapse could collide? As I approached the next body of work these raw  forms began to crystallize. The works by Haris Epaminonda and Daniel Gustav Cramer, titled The Infinite Library, 2007 to the present (showing 12 out of 60 artist's books), depicted floral illustrations that were blackened out by geometric shapes, for instance, a black rectangle, circle, or in some cases, the original image had been eliminated altogether. Keeping the title’s promise, the glass vitrines under which they were place reflected not only my own image, but also the space above it – so that it became partially impossible to see the content in its entirety (which can be frustrating in and of itself, but I guess that’s the point), for the pictures always already translated into a new composition.

And - there is the sudden shock, when unexpectedly confronted with your own image when looking at something (other than a mirror).
I was positively suprised, in the tranquility of the space (videos were placed in a way they would not disrupt that sensation of stillness) by the kinetic installation of Thomas Baumann,  Tau Sling, 2008:  A rotating rope that is driven by a little electrical motor.   The mirror placed on the floor onto which the rope fell (the impact produces a dull sound) as it wiggled itself under great effort and constraint - until it was pulled up again- ad infinitum. Its simplicity – both in its conceptual and representational approach-  I found striking. After staring at it for some time, the rope began to look animated and evoked the uncanny feeling that it is alive. It also reminded me of the never-ending Sisyphusian struggle, and on a very abstract and larger scale of the Wagner Opera Parsifal – which contemplates the importance of compassion as the ultimate basis of morality (which was based on Schopenhauer’s Ethics).

More than the question of “What is the true nature of reality, (The opening question of the exhibition- essay) I was interested in the question of the relationship between infinity, loss, and suffering, and how much of the objects in the exhibition are exposed to Will and willing (as for instance the rope installation, or the “rape of the earth,” James Dickey’s novel, suggested in the exhibition-essay).  Because, according to Schopenhauer, “denial of the will to live is the way to salvation from suffering.” Not only that, but the denial of the will allows for an awakening. A self-less being. This is confirmed and also compliments the line of thought of the exhibition, when he claims, “...[T]o one who has achieved the will-less state, it is the world of the one willing that has been disclosed as 'nothing'. Its hold over us, its seeming reality, has been 'abolished' so that it now stands before us as nothing but a bad dream from which we are, thankfully, awaking...[t]o those in whom the will has turned and denied itself, this very real world of ours, with all its suns and milky ways, is — nothing."

In fact, Schopenhauer’s approach would be opposed to the Cartesian one stated in the exhibition-essay, which claims, “The will to survive, however has become the right to survive, a right whose abuses and excesses have made startlingly clear the fragile parameters governing terrestrial life. We flirt with extinction, an irrational provocation turned desire.” According to Schopenhauer, all suffering and life’s tragedies are manifestations of the will to survive and consequently, the Individual’s strive for ever more success and satisfaction of desire:  The never-ending will to live continuously revs the motors of this Cosmic spectacle. A gloomy perspective either way.

12 Theses / Dec 14th / 7-10pm

Width: 700px; gallery

Width: 700px;

While the structure of the gallery is virtually limitless in the boundary-less  non-physically governed realm of cyberspace, Width: 700px; Gallery chooses the ubiquitous white cube as its form. Not only does it take on that familiar gallery format, every “room” in each show is just a template. The colors the walls are painted may vary; works may appear hung on the “wall” or as sculpture on the “floor” or “pedestals.” Even the first frame, the front desk, is cast from the same mold with just a post it note which expands to a description of the show before you enter.

When a gallery can be so much more flexible with space online, why settle for the same structure we have seen over and over? It could be the same reason that new galleries choose to revert to a familiar format rather than trying something new: the white cube is safe. It is comfortable and well known. Perhaps, on the other hand, the lo-res pixelated reflection of the art world is a lighthearted critique of the institution, a reduction of the space and a teasing at an aesthetic associated with huge sums of cultural and monetary capital. In a world where the newcomers are tech-savvy and the upper crust of the art world takes tremendous strength to grab a foothold in, it makes sense that counterculture and the underdogs will do what they have always done: satire and attempt to subvert the world from which they are still excluded.

The white cube of Width: 700px;, curated and created by Levi Bruce, is a chance to pretend, a fantasy, and a rebellion all rolled into one. It surpasses the conventional gallery in its ability to show digital-only work, which real world galleries are still trying to figure out. In the new gallery, a .gif may be housed in an ornate goldleaf frame, an icon from a well known program may sit on the floor, poised in perfect non-space, pretending to exist in more than two dimensions.

            How the gallery goers access the space is different, too. Instead of keeping an eye out in journals or receiving postcards, the viewer of this exhibit is invited on Facebook. A link to the show is published on opening night. Maybe followers of past shows will see the new work on their feed, as the gallery is after all, merely a tumblr. Perhaps the viewer has instead followed an entire arc of links, looking at the featured artist of the curator. Yes, it does seem a quite a bit less glamorous than the cocktail parties of yesteryear, but how many visitors from Mozambique, Korea, or Greece for example would have come to a localized opening? I can venture a significantly smaller number.

            Sherwin Rivera Tibayan, the last exhibiting artist, seems like a natural fit in this gallery. A PhD student at University of Texas, Austin, his work in the exhibition continues on his own practice of distorting the space in the gallery through mirrors, clone stamp .gifs of established gallery spaces, frames, and windows. "Tibayan generates work that both deconstructs and caters to the specific environment in which it might be showcased. Both contextually and visually, the artwork is made as a reaction to the gallery, suggesting the confinement and rigidity of traditional exhibition space."

            While the exhibition space is incredibly exciting, and I appreciate its play on the rather annoyingly consistent structure the art world tends to fall on, I also find myself wishing in the same breath that it would take it to the next level, whatever that level might look like.

Links:

 700 gallery

 Sherwin Rivera Tibayan

CALENDAR

Studio Nudes

Nick Johnson

Document (Oct. 25 - Dec. 7)

845 Washington, Chicago, IL.