Prompt:
In the desert, nobody seems to care about who will be president.
Instead I meet a man watering his lonely tree in hopes that it might not succumb, as he has, to the solemn winter sun. I wonder for a moment if this practice might kill the tree? If perhaps it is growing in the desert for a reason? I think it best not to speculate on kindness, and so, I photograph him instead.
I have made ten thousand pictures hoping that they might water a desert that probably doesn’t need it. I have begged, stolen and borrowed, borrowed so fucking much, to make this work work. And I have called my work work, for lack of a better word.
It is getting hard to feel that art can make a difference anymore. Hard to see these victories of ours as anything but pyrrhic. Hard to imagine a space beyond the roots of my friend's tree, that hard Earth drenched in soft cool water, and yet we are compelled to see a forest where otherwise none could stand. It is hard work, we are told, but at least it is good experience.
I used to think that art necessarily serves as a space beyond capitalism. I know now that the two are inextricably linked. I am desperate, as I think we are all desperate, to articulate new models for relating to art beyond this consumer-oriented dog-eat-dog which we are asked each day to accept. I refuse, and though my refusal may come too late and mean too little, I refuse to think that our refusals are not in some way great.
///
“Deserting positively from the culture wars must mean to exit from forms of sovereign individuality forged through property and competition; to abandon behavioral patterns born from isolation and the fear of social decline; to perform otherwise by relating differently; to transform or undercommon existing institutional structures; to institute otherwise; and to create para-institutions or artist’ organizations, collective personae and operational fictions, connections and coalitions”
- Sven Lütticken, Performing Culture Otherwise, Deserting from the Culture Wars
Guest Curated by Kelsey Sucena
Artists: Albert Abdul-Barr Wang, Alex Mctigue, Carla Liesching, Charlotte Woolf, Joey Solomon, Jack Young, Saxon Baird, Tim Hodge, Kami Spear, Brennan Booker,
Sarah Midkiff, Jennifer Pilch, Angela Higuera, Dana Stirling, John Kinney, Kirslyn Schell-Smith, Suzanne Silver, Brandon Foushee, Gianna Sergovich, Mackenzie Lynch,
Deb Choudhuri, Julie Rae Powers, Joseph Caster, Nat Raum, Jamie Ho, Divine Princess B, Frances Bukovsky, Roger Richardson, Marissa Iamartino, Christian Gallo, Mel Lopez,
Preston Rescigno, Jason Lipeles, and Keavy Handley-Byrne
Temporary Exhibition: TBA
Spotify Playlist: Link
In the desert, nobody seems to care about who will be president.
Instead I meet a man watering his lonely tree in hopes that it might not succumb, as he has, to the solemn winter sun. I wonder for a moment if this practice might kill the tree? If perhaps it is growing in the desert for a reason? I think it best not to speculate on kindness, and so, I photograph him instead.
I have made ten thousand pictures hoping that they might water a desert that probably doesn’t need it. I have begged, stolen and borrowed, borrowed so fucking much, to make this work work. And I have called my work work, for lack of a better word.
It is getting hard to feel that art can make a difference anymore. Hard to see these victories of ours as anything but pyrrhic. Hard to imagine a space beyond the roots of my friend's tree, that hard Earth drenched in soft cool water, and yet we are compelled to see a forest where otherwise none could stand. It is hard work, we are told, but at least it is good experience.
I used to think that art necessarily serves as a space beyond capitalism. I know now that the two are inextricably linked. I am desperate, as I think we are all desperate, to articulate new models for relating to art beyond this consumer-oriented dog-eat-dog which we are asked each day to accept. I refuse, and though my refusal may come too late and mean too little, I refuse to think that our refusals are not in some way great.
///
“Deserting positively from the culture wars must mean to exit from forms of sovereign individuality forged through property and competition; to abandon behavioral patterns born from isolation and the fear of social decline; to perform otherwise by relating differently; to transform or undercommon existing institutional structures; to institute otherwise; and to create para-institutions or artist’ organizations, collective personae and operational fictions, connections and coalitions”
- Sven Lütticken, Performing Culture Otherwise, Deserting from the Culture Wars
Guest Curated by Kelsey Sucena
Artists: Albert Abdul-Barr Wang, Alex Mctigue, Carla Liesching, Charlotte Woolf, Joey Solomon, Jack Young, Saxon Baird, Tim Hodge, Kami Spear, Brennan Booker,
Sarah Midkiff, Jennifer Pilch, Angela Higuera, Dana Stirling, John Kinney, Kirslyn Schell-Smith, Suzanne Silver, Brandon Foushee, Gianna Sergovich, Mackenzie Lynch,
Deb Choudhuri, Julie Rae Powers, Joseph Caster, Nat Raum, Jamie Ho, Divine Princess B, Frances Bukovsky, Roger Richardson, Marissa Iamartino, Christian Gallo, Mel Lopez,
Preston Rescigno, Jason Lipeles, and Keavy Handley-Byrne
Temporary Exhibition: TBA
Spotify Playlist: Link