“Who Say It Be” works by Adam Lovitz and Sarah Peoples
The Form Review is a simple attempt to increase dialogue within art journalism and highlight the subjectivity of a traditional exhibition review. Artists/curators/responsible parties of an exhibition are invited to respond to five short prompts. In turn, a representative of the St.Claire views the exhibition and independently responds to the same five prompts. Both sets of “form answers” are published in tandem on the St.Claire website. To participate drop us a line at hark@the-st-claire.com
(IMAGE: Sarah Peoples, Like Him, Like Him, 2013. Courtesy of the artist)
Responses by Sarah Peoples and Adam Lovitz, artists
1. What is hidden in this exhibition? What is in plain sight?
Insecurities and Assertiveness.
2. Who would be this exhibition’s parents? What might it’s children look like?
Pending DNA tests, a result of an orgy involving Mother Earth, Pee Wee Herman, Carl Sagan, Liberace, Cheryl Donegan, and Walt Whitman.
Children: The stars in the sky
3. Describe one moment in this exhibition.
The seriousness of chicken bones as a legitimate contemporary art medium and the sincerity of a two-dimensional image of a swan as a symbolic representation for the human condition.
4. This exhibition answers the following question:
Is it grass-fed?
5. You should message this exhibition if…
You are amongst trees that grow through concrete.
Responses by Matt Kalasky, Editor The St.Claire
1. What is hidden in this exhibition? What is in plain sight?
Small moves are hidden inside big moves. Like embracing nesting dolls, the pieces in this show unfold inward revealing ever smaller universes. However, at the last indivisible point—a single rhinestone—a baby heart sticker–the force of cohesion fails and the works achieve something closer to chaos than composition.
2. Who would be this exhibition’s parents? What might it’s children look like?
Growing up Ul de Rico and Dr. Seuss had a profound effect of this exhibition. If not biological parents, at least goofy uncles that visited every time Pluto was in retrograde and Saturn entered the house of Libra. Its children will grow up in the deserted city. In many of People’s repurposed Hudson River Valley paintings, nature is strong and grand; oftentimes squeezing the bones of antiquity into lifeless ruins. Lovitz’s litter tableaus are a striking comparison, as we see the evidence of our own civilization; in our own handcrafted retrograde.
3. Describe one moment in this exhibition.
In Lovitz’s Star Stuff, tiny gumball machine trinkets are pushed into a pure dead white obelisk of styrofoam. They have been entombed forever– their value lost only to children or the desperate. Its hard to understand if their presence indicates something or nothing.
4. This exhibition answers the following question:
How do we embrace our body’s history in this place?
5. You should message this exhibition if…
If you are precious. If you are dirty.
…
WHO SAY IT BE – ARTIST TALK
Wednesday, September 18th, 2013, 6 – 8 p.m.
Sculpture Study Center, Samuel M.V. Hamilton Building
Artists Sarah Peoples and Adam Lovitz speak with Todd Keyser, Assistant director of Gross McCleaf Gallery.
“Who Say It Be”
Works by Adam Lovitz and Sarah Peoples
ON VIEW:
June 27 – October 13, 2013
PAFA School of Fine Arts Gallery
128 North Broad Street
Philadelphia, PA 19102
www.pafa.edu/whosayitbe/