#jess perlitz

[tsamiami]

Jess Perlitz Portland, OR Lobby

Jess Perlitz will present an installation dealing with heterotopia, a geographical term used to describe spaces that are actually non-spaces. Using the material language of celebration and comfort, Perlitz will create the shell of presence. White hotel pillow cases will become masks filling much of the floor. Overhead, colorful string pennant flags turned face-like will traverse the space.

jessperlitz.com

[tsamiami]

Jess Perlitz (Portland, OR)

Jess Perlitz is a Canadian-born sculptor whose work is focused on considering the various ways we communicate and understand place. Approaching sculpture as a way to talk about the articulation of space, her projects take different forms, traversing performance, object-making, drawings and public events. The work has appeared in various sites including playgrounds, fields, galleries and museums, spanning a broad range such as Public Homes for the Aged in Toronto, the Institute for Contemporary Art in Philadelphia, and the Queens Museum in NY. Jess received an MFA from Tyler School of Art (2009), BA from Bard College (2000) and clown training from the Manitoulin Center for Creation and Performance. Jess is currently based in Portland, Oregon where she is Assistant Professor of Art and Head of Sculpture at Lewis & Clark College. Recent projects have been at the Arctic Circle (as part of the Arctic Circle Residency), Pacific Sky Exhibitions (Eugene, OR), De Fabriek (Eindhoven, NL) and Eastern State Penitentiary (Philadelphia, PA).

www.jessperlitz.com

[tigerstrikesasteroid]

Jess Perlitz & Jared Clark - Essay

I have always thought of sculpture as a kind of gravestone or marker, the end point of an event which was real and alive. And like a gravestone, it would be easier if there was an epitaph or name to hint at what the event looked like. Jared Lindsay Clark and Jessica Perlitz installed their sculptures in the Tiger Strikes Asteroid gallery during the month of November. These two artists did not work collaboratively on this installation, but I believe their work together creates an interesting dialogue about the event of living in the 21st century.

Mr. Clark was first a painter and then a sculptor. This order of approach to art making manifests itself in his interest in playing with color, the picture plain, and pattern within his sculptures. His sculptures are arresting in their aesthetic construction. He collages objects together to form one whole image; Often the pattern within the smaller objects becomes another more intimate dialogue of the piece. There is the monumental approach, taking the sculpture in from afar (nearly impossible in the Tiger Strikes Asteroid gallery space) and then the equally satisfying closer inspection. Mr. Clark refers to his sculpture’s as Bilds. Bild means "picture" in German and connotes phonetically the construction of something architectural or sculptural in English. The objects used to construct the whole are often collected from second hand sources. They were originally intended for another use and here recycled into a second life, or collage. This process recalls for me the male bower bird who makes a nest from collected discarded objects, often incorporating bits of color from discarded bottle caps or plastic straws. Mr. Clark ,like the bower bird, occasionally inserts color, which amidst the monotone delights the eyes almost like an epiphany. The tightly stacked objects become a study in puzzle making and engineering. How can we make do with what is left? In this way, while seeming playful, they also appear as the walls of the apocalyptic forts of millennium survivors.  

Ms. Perlitz creates well engineered sculptures that are platforms for communication. Using flags, elevated stages, stairs, air-raid sirens, mega phones, and talking tubes her sculptures are interactive, and at times loud. The calm aesthetic of her clean constructions (often serenely white washed) also reveal a human hand in their awkward bumps and lumps bubbling the surface of the plaster or metal . In this gallery installation Ms. Perlitz offers us tools for communication but they are not completely accessible and are challenging to physically activate. To wave the bundled flags one would have to carefully exit the small gallery and call several friends to assist in the act of waving. The siren tube swallows it’s own tail muffling the call to action. Sirens are used in times of emergency to alert a community of a threat. Flags can claim territory, warn of rough tides, or proclaim loyalty. So what are they doing here in a gallery but reminding us of our own inactivity. When will it become necessary to wave flags and alarm fellow citizens? When do we have occasion to claim a state of emergency?

Both artists express many of the anxieties of our age. Have I made a stand, and said what I felt was needed? Can the world survive amidst this excess of disposable goods? In the 21st century, most people with something to say find blogs or website as their forum, there is a lack of face to face communication, of raising literal flags and shouting warnings so that it may appear all is calm in the visible world. And in the making of new art objects out of mass produced disposable artifacts we are literally making precious and valuable our own excess and waste.

  -Farrar Fitzgerald is the Assistant Director of Education at the Rosenbach Museum & Library in Philadelphia.