Ross Brubeck at Savery Gallery
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: Installation View of Ross Brubeck: Earthbound CREDIT: Courtesy of Savery Gallery)
Responses by Ross Brubeck, artist
1. What is hidden in this exhibition? What is in plain sight?
What’s hidden is the work that came before this. Much of the sculpture shown is iterations on a past concept, or piece that I am too fond of to let go yet. Like a new cast in an old show, or next years car model, I’m stuck between calling it generational progression and necromancy. Replace the dead with something alive that looks like it. What’s in plain sight is a woman on the floor.
2. Who would be this exhibition’s parents? What might its children look like?
Earthbound could be kin to Art Clokey and Terry Riley. I feel like its child might look like Philip Seymour Hoffman’s character at the end of Synecdoche, New York, but he would look this way right at birth. He starts small and just gets bigger over time.
3. Describe one moment in this exhibition.
The body of work spirals in onto itself on a pedestal next to the door. I have presented this in lieu of a crystal ball. Much of the detritus of the studio gets swept into the trash on a daily basis, but some crumbs or chips or something which weighs less than a gram calls out to me as representative of the work that it flaked off of. I raise a monument to these items in a sort of map of the exhibition itself.
4. This exhibition answers/asks the following question:
What’s for dessert?
5. You should message this exhibition if…
You are looking for a good time.
Responses by Matt Kalasky, The St.Claire
1. What is hidden in this exhibition? What is in plain sight?
There are serious gaps of information on display within Ross Brubeck’s exhibition. These gaps have their own presence, like a drawing made by an eraser. Either in squiggley sqwoos cut from colorful wood panels or the simple interruption of spatial logic, the space between what is present takes on a primary role; like an itch that you give a name.
2. Who would be this exhibition’s parents? What might its children look like?
This exhibition reminds me of those Freaky Friday movies where the child and the adult switch bodies. The ones where the characters are forced to reconcile the dissonance between childhood anxiety and grownup responsibility. Here we are adults (maybe) trapped in a Sesame Street environment where the lessons appear simple, colorful, pleasant and recognizable but somehow the meaning is just out of reach. What the fuck do three oranges have to do with the letter “C”? In childhood there is at least the promise that understanding (and responsibility) will come later in life but in this freaky mirror of adulthood no such guarantees are found and we are forced to confront our own dumbness; perpetually searching for a way out/back.
3. Describe one moment in this exhibition.
A velcro painting where the shapes and lines are moveable — stickable. It feels like a kinder toy at a montessori school. I imagine the soft forms in clumsy chubby hands creating a masterpiece that an adult wouldn’t have the illogic or impatience to create.
4. This exhibition answers/asks the following question:
What is the teaching value of confusion?
5. You should message this exhibition if…
you are good at reading for context clues.
…
Ross Brubeck : Earthbound
www.saverygallery.com/earthbound
ON VIEW:
January 8 – 31, 2015
Savery Gallery
319 N. 11 St.
Philadelphia, PA 19107