#bailey sheehan

by bailey sheehan

I especially appreciate when an idea is courageous enough to venture into the "real world," its “real problems” and “real communities” exponentially more apparent than in the temporally frozen space of an institution.

Six @ Six was held in the Unpretentious Motor Inn with free Wi-Fi that is Motel 6. The rooms that were rented/parceled out were the six rooms closest to the entrance of the Motel itself. The show spaces were ground floor and all in succession to one another. I did not find much to engage with in a large percentage of the work exhibited in this show, which is not to be considered a demerit to the work itself. I believe regardless of what the work may have been about, I found myself put at an incredible distance from any of that prospective meaning by the mechanics of the works’ handling of the site.

Some of the inconsistencies I find with the show become more apparent when it is compared to a haunted house (which the show could have been easily mistaken for). People were led in groups into highly thematized spaces where we witnessed various amounts of acting/performing. There was lots of laughter and an undeniable giddiness in the air. This is not successful in that most people go to haunted houses so that they may be entertained by being scared. In an endeavour to be entertained, most people pay for a modular experience and, with that awareness, the experience turns from one of being scared, saddened, or surprised to one of being entertained, which might be analogous to the modularity experienced when viewing art.

It may have been this expected modularity that caused the motel rooms to feel more like sets rather than real spaces being responded to. If it was too scary, one could, at any moment, stop or remind themselves of the simulation’s presence. It is a form of spectacle that is especially apparent within performance; it either works or it doesn’t (it seems).

What I found to be especially frightening was the light emanating from the second floor rooms atop the exhibition. It was suggestive of another presence outside of the work/the group of mostly young people. It would be wrong to assume that whoever was in those rooms was using them for the motel’s intended purpose; it may have in fact been for equally bizarre reasons as the show (though those reasons were hidden from the public eye). I believe the foreignness of the work being presented at the ground level led me to feel as though everything else was just: everything else. This is an imposition that I don’t think the show was interested in enacting. The art becomes the art and its spectacular showing is so loud that it groups everything else together as “other.” Motel goers become thematized into being exactly what we think of “them” to be.

Despite some of those shortcomings, I found the sixth room of the show to be incredibly successful. The room, directed by Marcelline Mandeng, Keenon Brice and Emilia Pennanen was most striking in its avoidance of giving the viewer anything they would immediately expect or want, things they probably received in the rooms preceding. Viewers were denied the assumption that they, too, would have the same metaphysical implication of modularity, or distance, that we usually expect to have while looking at an artwork.

The door was locked shut (though this was not the only room to do so) and the viewer waited to be allowed in. All three performers were wearing masks and rarely spoke. The door would fly open and Marcelline would quickly pull out a gun and hold it to viewers who were otherwise expecting to be allowed in (they were not). If they were lucky enough to be let in, they would be pushed to do things that some believed were pushing the boundaries of their own personal limitations. A woman was made to leave the room after having her hand dunked in what appeared to be a lube-like substance. A friend of mine was escorted out after having a pomegranate smooshed against his face and shirt while being told to call his mother and count to one hundred. Another friend of mine never got the opportunity to go inside the room because they never let her in. I even heard that someone was thrown in the shower and soaked.

People want equity, people don’t want to get their clothes dirtied or to be treated in a way that might discomfort them in a nonconsensual way. That said, what could have been a better embodiment of the atmosphere exuding from Motel 6 for the two hours that the show took place? Emilia’s, Kenan’s, and Marcelline’s room remained in avoidance of becoming a spectacle because it remained true to the individual’s experience rather than focusing on the politics of curation or performance, politics that don’t register with importance given the site’s context.

Six @ Six was a one night only group show at the Motel 6 on North Avenue, featuring six site-specific installations and performances. Work by: Forced Into Femininity, Julie Libersat, Sashenka López & Miguel Mendías, Marcelline Mandeng & Keenon Brice & Emilia Pennanen, Adam Void, and Laura Weiner. Curated by Miguel Mendías.

The Motel 6, 110 W. North Ave, Baltimore, MD 21201 (November 6, 2015)

bailey sheehan

The fate of the horseshoe crab seems to be dismal and worth the attention of an experienced artist’s touch, one that many would believe New Mexico artist Puppies Puppies to have. One might catch themselves thinking: this seems like an important project, I’m surprised more people do not know about this, as they leave the Freddy Gallery on West Franklin. But are we to believe that Puppies Puppies solely purposed this show to raise awareness of a ‘forgettable sea creature with a hidden chemical superpower?’ I feel there is more to discuss here.

The most recent exhibition at Freddy Gallery features painted horseshoe crabs and vinyl works in addition to a live performance. The work is seemingly focused on giving a visual explanation of the LAL test, which involves the use of a chemical found only in the amoebocytes of the horseshoe crab’s blood cells. “Pharmaceutical companies burst the cells that contain the chemical, called coagulogen. Then, they can use the coagulogen to detect contamination in any solution that might come into contact with blood. If there are dangerous bacterial endotoxins in the liquid- even at a concentration of one part per trillion- the horseshoe crab blood extract will go to work”- by turning the solution into a ‘gel’ substance. Nonetheless, to paraphrase the press release, virtually every American who has ever received an injection has been protected because we harvest the blood of the horseshoe crab.

I believe the most critical part of the exhibition lies on the back of the press release itself.

Hi this is Puppies speaking on behalf of HorseshoeCrabs:

The horseshoe crab… It has evolved onnnnly so much as to further its existence & existence it has achieveddd…. 445 million years worth….. horseshoe crabs and paintings seem to relate in my mind. They are expressions that have survived the test of time. By linking the two I’m expressing my need as an artist (not by me being the actual artist that painted the paintings) but my need to present the paintings in this context. Maybe these expressions are addressing my need to survive and to hide under many layers in order to do so. To understand my fleeting existence but know that humans like me will continue to paint. To breed on the shoreline in shallow water only to propel the existence of my expressions and the expressions to come later on, I feel very deeply for these creatures.

It is very tempting to digest this direct statement from Puppies in a binary sense (them commenting on a relationship between a human and external [natural] world). This would be a very stale modern take on an issue that, for the most part, a large percentage of us have gone our whole lives not caring about. Though Puppies only mentions man and horseshoe crab, I believe him/her to be outlining a more overarching network of thoughts. I believe it would also be very tempting to spout a thematic ecological discussion that would leave us all feeling very sorry for these poor, poor creatures. If we do choose to take that route, how are we then supposed to feel about painting? How are we then supposed to feel about our own reproductions through the everyday (facebook, snapchat, everyday performative gestures, etc.).

Puppies speaks about the need, obligation and instinct to procreate in both the production of paintings and within the horseshoe crab population itself. The relationship that Puppies finds between the two owes itself to many more things than just the initial similarities one may find. I begin to think of all the other happenings required for the two processes of production discussed earlier to take place. I do not want to view this relationship being described as one that temporarily floats above the mechanics of the everyday. I think of the full moons and high tides necessary for a typical horseshoe crab mating season, or even the worms and clams that form the horseshoe crab’s regular diet.

The average contemporary painter steps outside their mating process as they journey to the local art store to pick up the necessary paints, stretchers and canvas. As one starts to form a list of every thing related to the process of duplication, mating or ‘creating’ (as the romantic painter would believe) and then a respective list of all the things related to that long list of things first handedly related to the original act, it changes the way we speak about things commonly idealized as being autonomous such as painting or horseshoe crab mating. I think now we are drifting towards a more Latourian approach to dissecting just what this show is trying to dance around. If we take, for instance, French Sociologist Bruno Latour’s actor-network theory (which treats objects as part of social networks) not only does it do the job of removing humans from a metaphysical top-tier in any analysis we try to mount, it also mobilizes horseshoe crabs as a driving force in that same relationship (able to act or participate in that same list of networks). If we instill within the horseshoe crab, an ability to act or participate actively in a system of networks (not through animism or our imagination, but rather through a pseudo flattened ontological mindset) we begin to tred into a conversation that is more entertaining and definitely a lot less lonely. We become less lonely in a sense that we may begin to realize we share the stage (as both humans and artists) with a lot more actors who have just as much if not more experience as us, that population no longer swept to stage left and labeled as other, everything else, or even people (as some ecological discussions tend to drift towards). To be perfectly honest, a hyperobject such as a horseshoe crab is a great stage partner to have.

The instinct to reproduce (whether painting or horseshoecrab mating) may not be one that is mythical or some thing that we humans or artists should find unbelievable and/or beautiful. The horseshoe crab may in fact be acting within its networks and among its set of alliances (which give justification for its existence not in a sense of purpose but in a pure empirical sense). As the horseshoe crab continues to breed on the shoreline in shallow water only to propel its constant ability to act, to change and grow (not so that on one far off day it may be free to live peacefully on its own, but rather for the sole purpose of expression, of acting), painting continues along a parallel trajectory. Painting can so often be a dreamy, mystical process of magic that happens when an artist is in their studio. Here, Puppies suggests that the initiative to paint is the same as a horseshoe crab’s performative act of reproduction. The fewer alliances an actor forms or has, the weaker their grip becomes on existence, therefore, painting (and, to a greater extent, art) survives (and is beautiful) through its alliances with other networks and its opaque malleability. I feel that both the painter and the painting should not colonize their way through the everyday. It may be because of this notion that makes it a perfectly appropriate move for Puppies to have not painted or even fabricated any of the visual components of the show. The fabulous myth of the painter lives on. Their ‘shared stage’ allows the perpetual act of recreation and duplication of painting to continue unfettered (even more so than the typical show we have become used to seeing). Puppies truly connects to this sea creature not in an animistic-type sense but in a sense that they are comfortable enough to share the stage. To say (in this instance) that it does not in any way really matter who painted or fabricated each piece (be it a professional artist or a more visionary-type painter), that would not be so bizarre would it?

Perhaps in remembering the artist’s various trips to the art store, high tides and pb&j’s we may begin to derail the magic of the artist and of ‘nature’ and understand our own initiatives as well as those around us as we begin to share Puppies’ feelings towards this forgettable sea creature.

HorseshoecrabsHorseshoecrabs is on view through September 26 at 510 W. Franklin Street, Baltimore, MD. All images courtesy Freddy Gallery.

by bailey sheehan

Longing For Leisure features work of London based artists Alex Brenchley, Lauren Godfrey, Nicholas Hatfull, and Alec Kronacker and was curated by Seán Boylan.

Leisure-longing is an endeavor known by little, as it is rarely intersected with an art viewing encounter. Phenomenology, being of awareness, could be perceived as boring (possibly even more boring through its acknowledgment) though whoever it was that said that boring is counter-effective should, in this instance, reconsider. Painting is as useful as is standing in a shower until the water runs cold or stirring pasta until the water comes to a boil on its own (I mean this in the best of ways). A realization has to be made at some point down the road. Leisure as a tool for non-literal thought posits an intuitive breakthrough that these four artists have laid their collective finger on.

Upon entering Longing for Leisure, it is easy to find yourself dissatisfied with the lack of imagery with which you are presented. One sees a few larger-scale (around 4x5’) paintings to the left and back-left, a smaller-scaled work and a few vinyl prints next to and in the front two window displays. Leaving the gallery, what I can remember most of the show is that much of the work was spaghetti themed and that there was a large painting of a man who is also a ship, smoking a cigarette. In the center of the space sits an enlarged, navy coffee lid with stirrers (all produced with a CNC mill). Lastly, one is to pick up a poetic gallery text accompanied with a list of the artists and their respective works.

This poetic preface to the exhibition is important in its failure to spark any ‘interest’ on the readers’ part. One observes the space and then, confused, turns to the text to attempt to put a name to an image. We read the preface and finish, perhaps maybe even more unaided in answering the question ‘what is this about?’

Maybe we knew the answer to that question and then we forgot it, and now, at this exhibition, we are trying to remember it. In considering ‘remembrance’ and ‘awareness’, we have lost touch just as the person (who is described in the short story in the gallery text) could not remember the note inscribed on the ripped piece of paper they lost between pants transfers (even though it was of most importance to them).

A risk is being taken in that this show walks a very fine line between being ‘interesting because it is seemingly boring’, or just being ‘boring in and of itself.’ I am trying to remember what exactly it was that I saw in the show and why I found it so fascinating, but it is escaping me. This isn’t necessarily detrimental to the show as much as it is a merit to its execution; its comfort in being forgettable. The show allows itself to become a backdrop and reemerges when I’m in the shower, or cooking pasta. I think that is especially beautiful.  

When trying to remember some thing, the more effort one exerts in remembering, the more the Thing escapes them. The inversion of this would be: the thing is most likely to present itself when we are not trying to remember or put our finger on it.

The moment we enter Longing for Leisure, we experience neither side of this coin but perhaps something between. We enter expecting to realize the thing that we have not yet realized. This prospective realization is unable to actualize itself through our concurrent attempts to grasp this thing. e.g. By attempting to remember the name of an actor, the further the name seems to drift to the back of your head; you realize that you need to not think of the search for the name in order for the name to naturally re-emerge.

At Longing, for Leisure, we have been assigned the task of the I can’t remember, which posits as much of a question as it does an answer (through it being the answer to a different question than the original one (what is this show all about?), and that same answer owing its Aha!-moment from the original question itself). To jump off the diving board harder is to only be drawn further into the enigma to which this show is presenting to us. Perhaps one would have to sit around and drink beer until one remembers.