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Spill in-progress curatorial project |
According to philosopher Zygmunt Bauman in his book Liquid Modernity, we are living in "liquid society". Rather than a solidified society, we are either trapped or reveling within a liquid society. He writes about a society that prioritizes flexibility and change, develops fluid understandings of once solid social forms, uses software over hardware, and results in freedom, but also confusion. Likewise, the work in this exhibition reflects an ambivalent perception of liquidity manifesting in all categories of liquefaction and solidification. Within this idea of a liquid society, the spill, particularly, can have special significance.
A spill is defined as a liquid released from its boundary. It is a situation after the mould has been broken that is post-solidity. This being said, solid structures are not bygone in this exhibition, instead, the spills often create new solid forms (see the work of Ellie Tomlinson and Devra Freelander). The pieces in this exhibition offer all stages of rigidity. The spill is particularly useful in imagining the emotional and visceral ramifications of a liquid society on personal scales.
Spills evoke the notion of failure and subsequent emotional responses ranging from slapstick humor in cartoonish representations of a spill (see the work of Devra Freelander) to traumatic loss in bodily representations of a spill (see the work of Sheida Soleimani). The need to control, the inability to control, and the subsequent loss of control are subject for examination in this exhibition. Spills challenge wholeness and the edge between objects. Artists either lament the failure to control or revel in the messiness.
Artists may encourage or allow spillage by utilizing chance operations that lead to accidents. The studio floor, in the work of Barbara Weissberger, Eleanor Aldrich, and SV Randall, accumulates spillage and becomes a signal for the ephemera typically outside of the presented work. The viewer may perceive the spillage as the artist's mistake; thereby, surmise that they have become privy to the artist's unintentional expression. The image of the cultivated performer breaks down, revealing the human imperfection within the artist's process. In a generation increasingly supportive of fluid understandings of identity, the spill becomes a metaphor of the urge to further dissolve identity. The spill becomes a radical expression of an imperfect, messy image of oneself in a society that cultivates perfection. While the viewer may understand themselves to be witnessing a vulnerable moment and un-covering of an artist’s veneer, the spill may also be an example of what Duchamp called “canned chance,” in other words, the fabrication of accidents. The spill plays upon the tension between deskilled and skilled, busted and belabored, accident and intention, authenticity and illusion.
Regardless of the deliberate or accidental nature of each spill, spills also have a certain symbolic resonance relating to notions of fluidity and femininity. A spill, especially an accumulatiok of spills, is not only fluid, but also messy. The spill enacts all things messy, dirty, grimy, gory, visceral, and sensual in human experience, possibly even extending into the realm of the grotesque and traumatic. These qualities are all inherently linked with femininity. The spill expresses a hunger to explore a precarious, vulnerable, and anti-patriarchal experience that moves toward hybridity.
Other than the evaporation of liquid or the solidification of liquid, artists explore the combination of solidity and liquidity through the depiction of spillage. Spillage may be depicted and, through this translation from real to representation, the depicted drip merges chaos and control. A depicted drip may be entirely controlled in it’s creation and simultaneously still reference the accidental nature of an enacted drip. This contradiction is evident in the work of Jamie Earnest as wet drips of paint dry solid and become a painting of drips. The spill is encapsulated in the frame of the painting. In the papercut spills of Julie Alpert, the status of the spill is further complicated as her work fluctuates between both image and object. Her installations appear to be both melting ice and freezing rain, both joyful release and confinement.
Despite these differences, all of the work, nevertheless, spills. In times of the reinstituion of systems of control and increasing anxiety around psychological, economic, social, and political concerns, this exhibition reflects our inability to keep accidents from happening and our yearning for release. In this manner, spills embody dread and cartharsis. In relation to each post-spilled world, the artists cope with loss or revel in the freedom and the viewer is invited to celebrate or mourn. Are spills an apocalyptic collapse or glorious abandonment?
A spill is defined as a liquid released from its boundary. It is a situation after the mould has been broken that is post-solidity. This being said, solid structures are not bygone in this exhibition, instead, the spills often create new solid forms (see the work of Ellie Tomlinson and Devra Freelander). The pieces in this exhibition offer all stages of rigidity. The spill is particularly useful in imagining the emotional and visceral ramifications of a liquid society on personal scales.
Spills evoke the notion of failure and subsequent emotional responses ranging from slapstick humor in cartoonish representations of a spill (see the work of Devra Freelander) to traumatic loss in bodily representations of a spill (see the work of Sheida Soleimani). The need to control, the inability to control, and the subsequent loss of control are subject for examination in this exhibition. Spills challenge wholeness and the edge between objects. Artists either lament the failure to control or revel in the messiness.
Artists may encourage or allow spillage by utilizing chance operations that lead to accidents. The studio floor, in the work of Barbara Weissberger, Eleanor Aldrich, and SV Randall, accumulates spillage and becomes a signal for the ephemera typically outside of the presented work. The viewer may perceive the spillage as the artist's mistake; thereby, surmise that they have become privy to the artist's unintentional expression. The image of the cultivated performer breaks down, revealing the human imperfection within the artist's process. In a generation increasingly supportive of fluid understandings of identity, the spill becomes a metaphor of the urge to further dissolve identity. The spill becomes a radical expression of an imperfect, messy image of oneself in a society that cultivates perfection. While the viewer may understand themselves to be witnessing a vulnerable moment and un-covering of an artist’s veneer, the spill may also be an example of what Duchamp called “canned chance,” in other words, the fabrication of accidents. The spill plays upon the tension between deskilled and skilled, busted and belabored, accident and intention, authenticity and illusion.
Regardless of the deliberate or accidental nature of each spill, spills also have a certain symbolic resonance relating to notions of fluidity and femininity. A spill, especially an accumulatiok of spills, is not only fluid, but also messy. The spill enacts all things messy, dirty, grimy, gory, visceral, and sensual in human experience, possibly even extending into the realm of the grotesque and traumatic. These qualities are all inherently linked with femininity. The spill expresses a hunger to explore a precarious, vulnerable, and anti-patriarchal experience that moves toward hybridity.
Other than the evaporation of liquid or the solidification of liquid, artists explore the combination of solidity and liquidity through the depiction of spillage. Spillage may be depicted and, through this translation from real to representation, the depicted drip merges chaos and control. A depicted drip may be entirely controlled in it’s creation and simultaneously still reference the accidental nature of an enacted drip. This contradiction is evident in the work of Jamie Earnest as wet drips of paint dry solid and become a painting of drips. The spill is encapsulated in the frame of the painting. In the papercut spills of Julie Alpert, the status of the spill is further complicated as her work fluctuates between both image and object. Her installations appear to be both melting ice and freezing rain, both joyful release and confinement.
Despite these differences, all of the work, nevertheless, spills. In times of the reinstituion of systems of control and increasing anxiety around psychological, economic, social, and political concerns, this exhibition reflects our inability to keep accidents from happening and our yearning for release. In this manner, spills embody dread and cartharsis. In relation to each post-spilled world, the artists cope with loss or revel in the freedom and the viewer is invited to celebrate or mourn. Are spills an apocalyptic collapse or glorious abandonment?