A R T I S T & C U L T U R A L P R O D U C E R
Art Exhibition
Art Exhibition
Art Exhibition
A CLOUDBURST OF MATERIAL POSESSIONS
Curator & Project Manager
"Space is all one space and thought is all one thought is all one thought, but my mind divides its spaces into spaces into spaces and thoughts into thoughts into thoughts. Like a large condominium. Occasionally I think about the one Space and the one Thought, but usually I don't. Usually I think about my condominium"
- Andy Warhol
The Canal Chapter inaugurated its new location, The Stanton Chapter with a transitional show, A Cloudburst of Material Possessions: A Metaphor for the Myriad Considerations.
A curious and familiar bedroom from May 28th ~ June 6th. The gallery interior encapsulates individuals living inside, impenetrable by the public, though visible from the streetside. The contents of the room are salvaged neighborhood throwaways, and contributions from local artists, designers, and enthusiasts. Reading, band practice, dress-up, gossip, drawing, and hanging out - each invested moment and memory of day-to-day living manifests an interpersonal setting. From the outside, the gallery glass barrier pulls the bedroom into the scope of the tenement building that it is housed within, drawing in the condominium being erected next door, reminding the viewer of their arm's distance from the pressing borders of the transforming LES, rendering the individuals inside as addends to the slew of the new downtown demographic. A phone number on the window 917.578.2753 leads to an answering machine that offers one slight point of entry, one frail prospect for microcosmic reciprocity.
Then, from June 6th ~ 23rd, the doors will open, exposing the bedroom to the public, making the gallery a gallery. The entire interior will become a display for market where all of the once sacred items will be commodities, listed on a checklist. Exploited but affordable - the paradoxical merchandising of cultural accessibility.
Leonardo Da Vinci's drawing, A Cloudburst of Material Possessions, (c.1510) of implements rained down on the Earth from the Clouds, is a parable from which historians have made opposing interpretations. Sometimes it is a reckoning of the futile labors of man, sometimes it is a celebration of the wonders and fortunes of man. Similarly, art exists amongst these implements as an agent stimulating progress while also aiding indulgences. The impossible mediation of these contradictions suspends the bedroom somewhere between a tenement and a condo, as an environment that is a peripatetic approach to the difficulties and excitement of introducing yet another gallery in the Lower East Side – hopefully something a bit different -- Lena Imamura, The Stanton Chapter.