Wednesday, March 11, 2009

“New Work” by Maren Mill, Saki Sato, and Avery Singer on the 7th Floor Lobby

The 7th Floor show, "New Work" by Maren Miller, Saki Sato, and Avery
Singer, does not, as the title suggests, have a theme, so much as the
work visually and conceptually speaks to one another. Roughly ten
pieces are on display in this group show, with sculpture, collage,
photograph-posters (plotter-print vogue never dies here) one painting
and one wall drawing as well as a video. The connection between the
work is in some cases explicit, for instance the painting of a
throne-like chair (with a clashing, graphic red and blue background)
and the actual, physical throne set on a base. In other cases the
connection is made very simply and visually, like the radar-like
sculpture which faces the photo of a globular fish-eyed window. This
poster of the window hangs above the video of a chair in an empty room
facing a window which displays a distant seascape, making a subtle and
comical link. In one, the empty living room lets out into another
space, and in the photograph, the fish-eyed window reflects back onto
a scene of an elaborately decorated living. This video of a chair
facing the window is, ironically, the most quiet and most
still-seeming piece in the show.

If "New Work" isn't exactly themed, themes abound: windows, mirrors,
shadows, chairs seem, the more I think about it, to be everywhere in
the exhibition. What makes the video of the chair facing a window
subtle and appealing is lacking in the other work, which is often
crudely made to no apparent end.

Henry

Edit: as commenter points out, "Welcome" is the title of the show, which makes my suggestion that there isn't a specific theme slightly more questionable. But I think the general thought remains, that while there are definitely themes to the show it doesn't have one specific theme.

2 comments:

phyllis said...

I believe this show was actually called "welcome".

henry Chapman said...

You're right... error on my part, I went off of the school of art e-mail and somehow missed it when looking at the postcard, etc. Will fix.
-Henry