| At about five in the evening the skylight is brutal and I am momentarily blinded as I round the corner of a temporary wall. As I turn away from that awesome beam of light and my eyes regain focus I find myself looking at a wall covered in yellow Post-it notes. Or rather, a wall hung with images covered over and interrupted by informal messages. Actually, the messages are formal in every sense of the word: they are typed as opposed to handwritten, their content is formatted (every one begins with the same phrase) and their subject refers to the formal arrangement of the images on the wall—for, however cleverly one might feign informality, we know that we have just passed through the entrance of a museum. |  |
Grey Flags – Rebecca Lossin
At about five in the evening the skylight is brutal and I am momentarily blinded as I round the corner of a temporary wall. As I turn away from that awesome beam of light and my eyes regain focus I find myself looking at a wall covered in yellow Post-it notes. Or rather, a wall hung with images covered over and interrupted by informal messages. Actually, the messages are formal in every sense of the word: they are typed as opposed to handwritten, their content is formatted (every one begins with the same phrase) and their subject refers to the formal arrangement of the images on the wall—for, however cleverly one might feign informality, we know that we have just passed through the entrance of a museum. But regardless of their curatorial statement, before one has had time to actually read them, the yellow rectangles of paper still register as “get milk’” or “Jennifer 555-3542.” While it may be brief, there is a moment before textual engagement during which we are not reading language but the image of language—the implication of its existence.
It could be argued that Allen Ruppersberg’s series “Honey I Rearranged the Collection” sets a unique narrative precedent, influencing the way that the rest of the show is “read.” I am a sucker for words on walls and it might not be entirely irrelevant to mention that I often take extensive rambling notes on Post-its and then rearrange them on my kitchen table before I begin writing. But beyond my own bias towards the word (but not necessarily against the image) the inclusion of text, in this case at least, encourages a certain manner of interaction that avoids being dictatorially unilateral. It does not tell you what it is about (one could argue that it is simply about arrangement but that is so far-reaching a concept that it couldn’t possibly be limiting) but rather suggests the infinite possibility of meaning that can be achieved by the physical ordering of objects in space. And because the phrases end with such ambiguously personal statements such as “because I wanted it to look like you” the intention on the part of the artist and curator is not blatantly displayed. If it shows itself at all, it is only as an incoherent chain of association and not a coherent subject. While it acknowledges a creator, it refuses to reveal him. Not the accidental death of the author but his planned execution at the end of his project.
On the opposite side of the wall, now made to seem like a film without subtitles, is a collection of photographs by Shirana Shahbazi. Two photographs of houses made into neighbors by their placement next to each other. A fish tank, a skyline and a girl. While I initially walked past rather quickly, I found myself, on the way out, standing in front of that wall and telling myself stories about these loosely grouped images because I knew that a relationship existed between these photographs; meaningful if ambiguous. Or perhaps meaningful because of its ambiguity, a fertile space opened for interpretation.
“Jackie and Me,” a series of seven black and white photographs by Lutz Bacher, follows Jackie Onasis around the room, although the photographs don’t seem to be in any particular order, order is provided by captions—personalized headlines (the inverse of the formalized Post-it note) that indicate the infinite possibility for storytelling contained in an image—even the banal and uncritical photographs snapped by paparazzi.
In the basement, where the damp coolness is immediately familiar although it remains foreign to our notion of exhibition spaces, we are confronted by a series of dark galleries and one doesn’t quite trust the sign announcing the continuation of the exhibition that has been casually taped to the door. On another door at the back of a second gallery is another sign that reads “through the door” and one wonders whether this is an invitation or the title of the film playing silently to its right. Opening the door with a certain amount of caution, we find an even larger projection, this time in black and white with subtitles. Passing through the series of enclosed spaces is a bit like falling down a rabbit hole and one does truly have a sense of having fallen out of the bright open space of the main floor. From the pleasure of narrative we are plunged into the anxiety of looking. The basement’s low ceiling and exposed pipes, the low lighting and the closed doors, are infused with the illicit—this is the place for murder, skeletons and eventually discovered and revelatory remnants of the past. This is a place where you might not ought to be looking, but it is precisely this interdiction that makes it so compelling.
