I read Anthony’s show, and his suggestion to read Adorno in conjunction, as a face off with, not only the Hartell movable wall, but with Relational Aesthetics.  I’m guessing Anthony is taking a contrarian, somewhat hostile, stance to many of the ideas proposed by the movement.  The first clue is the cinderblock holding down the fascist beer (“The Black Beer with a Blond Soul”) staged as a Tiravanija post party installation.  Here Anthony’s signature brick keeps the six pack closed, although you are offered one poured if you would like to participate in the party, to drink of the cool-aid, as it were. 

The second clue is the temporary, broken wall. It is broken because of unseen rules that govern the gallery space (an invisible corridor must be maintained between the two fire exits) The ersatz wall crosses into this invisible barrier and must be broken back to maintain the gallery’s code, in the process being forced to bow to it’s permanent “other” which it simulates. It is rewarded for this subservience by its master/original with spot lights (its moment of fame, its chance to perform) before being quickly dismantled and the normative order reestablished (the party over).

Tiravanija explores “conviviality” in his work but rarely acknowledges for whom and under what conditions.  As Ashkin likes to say he always feels like he got to the party too late, or wasn’t invited at all.  Anthony questions this easy friendship, which perhaps opens its arms, but on whose terms?  Neighborly, yes, but who has the power, who must conform to be admitted.  Zizek in a ‘Fragile Absolute’, advocates for the Christian notion of Love thy Neighbor; in his example one’s neighbor is a “radical other,” one who cannot be integrated into your system, that remains antagonistic, will not be your friend, yet, you must love them anyway.  This love is difficult, confrontational, and productive, and not the kind of love found at a Gallery Social.

Nathan:
Two material complaints: I was at first thrilled, thinking how did Nathan get those CD cases made so large, was disappointed to find them to be photographs, although am aware that disappointed expectations is central to this project.  Perhaps, I could have been disappointed in a different way and still had the large CD cases.

Also, began to notice the sound in the room, thinking I never noticed this sound in here before, then located the speaker.  Would have liked not to find that speaker, or at least have it hanging up high and looking down on me.


Expectations forestalled are a theme running throughout, so legitimate complaint is difficult to muster; we are expected to be disappointed.  Intermission points to this most clearly: Intermission is when we leave the room, when we go out and socialize and refresh ourselves before returning to the performance.  Perhaps, a call to arms:  leave this gallery, there is nothing here of substance, this is all simulation of past revolution.  The performance followed similar lines: academic text read over images of texts of revolution, mixing in the mind, creating a kind of white noise.  If this leveling of language is where the performance is meant to be going, I would suggest complicating the language a bit more, perhaps by adding into the images segments of the text being read, but not synchronized.

Allen:
A poem by Wallace Stevens that I’ve been reading this week seemed to relate.  It begins:

It is possible that to seem––it is to be,
As the sun is something seeming and it is.

The sun is an example.  What it seems
It is and in such seeming all things are.

Seeming and being seemed to be at the center of Allen’s show, although seeming seemed to dominate.  The levels of seeming seemed to be:  light, shadow, object, perception, and thought, each blending into the other in a seeming attempt to locate, perhaps, oneself: there is the emphasis on self-portraiture, primarily the measure of the eye to the object, if this can be called “self.”  The double cone of strings both bringing perception in and radiating out vision.  Seeming into being for Stevens, subject into object for Allen:  the seeming of light illuminating others into being.

The most striking piece (not necessarily the “best”) is the self-portrait sculpture with cast shadow.  Only on the third visit (and Anthony G. telling me, “No, it’s a cast shadow”) did I separate shadow from object.  I kept wondering, “How did he get that color green so right, to look so convincingly like a shadow.”  A real (non-cinema) special effect that accomplishes a magical occurrence, much like seeming into being.  No small feat, and one suffused with melancholy:  the miracle of being in Allen’s work not being triumphant, but being that is barely there, almost only seeming.