MARIA PARK

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.

Selected Images