Economy
Selina Trepp's show at Document (up until April 19th) "Val Verità ", addresses the issue of economy.
"[The work]’s economy is multi-faceted, both in a literal and figurative sense. Over the past two years [Trepp] has been following a self-imposed rule that guides her studio practice; only use what’s already there to make new work with. No new materials or objects are brought in except for the clothes that she happens to be wearing that day. Because of this, she’s intimately familiar with, and acutely aware of the resources at her disposable. She tells the story of finding a hidden bag of plaster one day and celebrating. Every painting has been painted over multiple times, and when a color runs out it’s gone. Everything is transitory, in flux and cannibalized."
As for the subject matter? Val Verità is a fictional town in the Swiss Alps that holds a horse race every year.
"Trepp decided to create this body of work without conducting any academic research. She let her art practice be her research, and her memories of home, with its snow-capped mountains and buildings clad in scraffito (the cut and dyed plaster surfaces recurring in many of the photos) be her primary source material. As a result, the location of the work, both the town and the horse race, serve more as a backdrop or setting; they provide context. The centrality of the figures, and the drama of their emotions and interpersonal relationships, is the content."
It's moving, playful, and really fun to see.
Horses Asses, 2013
At the End of the Day, 2013
The Horsewhisperer, 2013
images: Document.
Waste
Ross Sawyers' show up at the Hyde Park Art Center (which is up until July 13th) examines the rise and subsequent fall of the housing market, and focuses on three themes: construction, reflection, and destruction.
"The proliferation of home construction significantly impacted large urban regions across the United States. In many cases, the focus on square footage and sales outweighed considerations of space and the relationship of buildings between one another and their overall environment. Interested in these factors as well as the physical quality of the new buildings made with low-quality stock materials and mundane off-the-shelf designer paint colors form Home Depot, Sawyers constructed dioramic models to exaggerate many of these conditions.
As the series transitions to focus on the deconstruction and destruction of foreclosed homes, especially moments where transient communities or formers homeowners use the surfaces of the wall as a mode of communication, Sawyers' process also reflects this destruction."
images: Ross Sawyers.