#gallery thoughts

[handhourgalleries]

I daydreamed of myself as some sort or many-tentacled horror wrestling phones in some liminal backroom or hellish reality that is a single room

I think my brain is trying to inspire art, or its being cruel.

Or both.

[z-hen]

State of the Art - May

This post is long overdue. I have been obsessively checking out shows at various art galleries in town to distract me from...well...myself. There were a few pieces over the past two weeks that struck a cord with me. I'd like to share them with...well...myself by documenting them here for the future Z-hen to read and reminisce:

1. Take off one shoe and listen to it for a while...

This installation at the Kemper made me laugh at first. Erwin Wurm is an Australian artist who once said “I will often use humor to seduce people...To get them to move closer, but it’s never very nice when they look closer." I have looked at many a pair of shoes but never listened to them. The thought made me pause: of all our worldly possessions, our shoes are the most intimate witness of our personal and often secretive journeys. So why not listen to them?

On an unrelated note, he may be 59 years old but how handsome is this man!

2. Music, Dance, and Sex

The death of the violin brought me back memories of my childhood and the craft that I completely abandoned in the height of my teenage angst. Oh how I miss and regret it deeply.  

There is a Chinese phrase that describes a life of luxury as "of intoxicated paper and infatuated gold". These two rather tacky pieces of installations together made me think of that phrase. I am not entirely sure if the artist behind these orange boxes is meaning to celebrate the act of having sex or lament the cheapening of the act in modern society, or is this simply a literal, tongue-in-cheek way of saying "putting pussy on a pedestal". 

3. Perspectives

The photographer took photos of one scene from a number of angles and perspectives to address, in my opinion, the complexity of everyday decisions and life scenarios. What I love about this set is how we don't even see the scene, which involves a person reaching out for an apple in an apartment, in most of the shots.

While everyone knows a penny has two sides and every story has a story behind it, often times we forget about all the other lesser influences and environmental factors that are actually impacting a situation in not- so-easily-traceable ways. They may be invisible to us at the time but they are forces of influence nonetheless. 

4. What Lurks Beneath:

These walls with "ripped" wallpapers were part of a huge installation at the contemporary art museum. I liked the concept of exposing secrets from the past(s) that may still be hiding underneath smooth white surfaces. I also like how it eludes to heritage, tradition, and layering of epiphanies and experiences in the "coming of age".