For Patti Phillips' class, students visited at least three different galleries that she had recommended. I went to Deitch Projects on Wooster Street to see Ryan McGuinness's sculptures and screen printed paintings (first row) and Deitch's other location on Grand Street to see Jon Kessler's Circus installation (last row--Kessler was talking to students on the last day of his installation, as shown in the first picture, and in the second picture with his hands above his head). I also went to see Alfredo Jaar's The Sound of Silence piece at Galerie Lelong and Siah Armajani’s Three Pieces, Three Drawings at Max Protetch Gallery. Our assignment was to discuss how Kessler, Jaar, and Armajani utilized space and architecture differently in their installations:
Jon Kessler's Circus uses space and architecture to address the issues of violence and war by placing the viewer right in the middle of a world of confusion, fear, and violence. Kessler’s Circus leads the viewer into a funhouse of miniature dolls, moving contraptions, and video screens exhaustively spinning and whirring under a “big top”—an army tent that fills the entire gallery space. On the last day of the show, Kessler spoke about his piece and his interest in the “lulling but also assaulting” nature of the installation. The mechanical sounds hum in the background as the frenzied movement from the contraptions visually attacks the viewers. Viewers are also caught on camera along with the tortured dolls, adding a layer of paranoia and discomfort to the piece. Kessler explained that the video surveillance is the main event of his installation, resembling real footage of brutality in recent wars. TV monitors are stacked on metal army bed frames on either end of the gallery. These real-time movies address our current relationship with the war because they expose how we are so distanced from its violence and wreckage. By having “the mechanism being connected with” its visual record, he gives us a glimpse of the war’s treachery that often goes untold or is subdued by the mainstream media.
Alfredo Jaar's The Sound of Silence places an ominous, aluminum structure in the middle of a gallery that was otherwise bare. When viewers first step into the gallery space, they are hit with a flood of light cast by hundreds of white neon lights, stuck vertically on the back of the construction. The structure’s demanding presence and direct orders to wait until summoned set a serious, foreboding tone to the exhibition. Three columns and two rows of 4-by-6 foot high aluminum sheets comprised walls that surrounded the dark room. One bench, a screen that showed projections, and six standing light fixtures adorned the room. Inside, the silent projection slowly flashed the life story of Kevin Carter, a South African photojournalist who took his own life because of his haunted past. Jaar’s emotionally charged piece sheds light on the devastating effect of silence--silence as inaction, and the silence of being unheard.
Siah Armajani’s “Three Pieces, Three Drawings” fills the gallery floor with three sculptures: One Car Garage, Emerson’s Parlor, and Edgar Allen Poe’s Study. Each sculpture plays with scale, as objects oscillate between doll-sized and human-sized objects and spaces. A mix of materials and scale created playful yet dangerous, delicate yet sturdy, public yet private architecture. In Emerson’s Parlor, glass stairs and a scarecrow’s arms extending through holes in the glass enclosure give the illusion of openness, while a large black cube blocks the door. A wooden toy bird and a game of cards were juxtaposed with stairs made out of saw blades in Edgar Allen Poe’s Study. Set on the floor at a slight slant, the pieces fill the space in a rather irregular pattern, making the gallery seem crowded, and the viewer, a bit claustrophobic even while the sculpture’s walls were transparent.
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