Composition, 2014
Margaret Thatcher Projects
New York, NY
September 11 - October 18, 2014
This exhibition presents new works as continuation of the Composition series,
which is inspired by Francois Truffaut's Fahrenheit 451 (1966), a film based on
Ray Bradbury's dystopian novel on the effects of mass media on literature. Truffaut's
first film in color as well as in English, Fahrenheit 451 has been described by critics
as "display[ing] the artisan more than the artist." This particular awkwardness creates
a film that is interestingly aware of the potentials and limits of its own medium.
Viewers are asked to contend not only with its narrative content but also orient
themselves within the space created by the separation of image and content. As part of
my ongoing interest in examining ways that technology intervenes in our perception,
Composition seeks to address the tension between image and experience, and between
projection and presence.
The current works are iterative plays upon our own relationship to both the idea and
object of the book. The Bookend Sets comprise stenciled paintings of scenes from F451
on the face and adjacent sides of 7" Plexiglas cubes arranged as bookends for selected
books on wall-mounted shelves. These are attempts to compose the strangely self-aware
moments in the film while positing ambiguity over whether the books in each arrangement
are chosen for its cover or content.
Covers 13-27 are images of Penguin Book covers published between 1937 and 1982,
excluding both text and representational imagery. They are reverse painted in acrylic
on 8" x 10" sheets of glass.
The Bookcase series depicts books on shelves from various sources, brought
together to position the viewer against a hypothetical collection purposed for
collective rather than individual reading, with the idea that display has its own
legibility and meaning. Each panel, varying in size from 7" x 7" to 7" x 21", is
reverse painted with acrylic on sheets of Plexiglas.