With the verbose exhibition title, A Cloudburst of Material Possessions: A Metaphor for the Myriad Considerations, I feared that The Canal Chapter’s move from a large loft space at 343 Canal, to a small LES storefront on Stanton Street, would be its final chapter. However, the intimate setting that transforms the gallery space into a staged bedroom, holds true to the original philosophies and mission statement that The Canal Chapter wrote over three years ago. Now The Stanton Chapter, this current exhibition plays with several ideas, some that are lighthearted and others that are heavy in conviction.
Walking past the glass window, one might believe you are voyeuristically intruding on a personal habitat. This confrontation puts The Stanton Chapter’s geographical location into an ugly perspective we tend to ignore. The LES, once a textbook example of a melting pot with disparate worlds colliding sometimes harmoniously and other times with conflict, is now a place of overpriced restaurants, slick high-rise condominiums, and fashionable boutiques. The Stanton Chapter’s installation as a façade of a sincere living space boldly contrasts these new components of the LES and acts as a reminder that there are longtime residents that will eventually face eviction.
However, there is another component that the installation as whole represents with a much more positive promise; it is the concept of collaboration. The Canal Chapter’s founders, Mikhail Sokovikov and Jason Aaron Wall have worked with each other for over ten years. This friendship began in the streets Brooklyn and solidified with graffiti. Yet, in the last three years, their co-operative mission expanded to reach and bridge into a family of local artists, writers, designers, skaters, and other graf cronies. It is with their contributions, not just of material objects to fill this exhibit, but their help with press releases, painting walls, or even mopping floors that this installation can successfully exist physically and conceptually.
Every object aesthetically maintains an essential position within the installation, performing like individual puzzle pieces putting together the larger picture. At closer observation, I found my personal favorites like Olivia Malone’s photographs titled, Streamsthrowstreams and Kgrass. Streamsthrowstreams illustrates a girl throwing colorful ribbons into a night sky. The flash on Malone’s camera sharpens the subject, but still exudes movement with the ribbons ready to fall into the wind. PegLeg and Reason’s clothing designs fill a rolling rack and dresser drawers. Reason’s tee shirts are witty with phrase like, “Fuck the Industry” or “Go (Heart) Your City.” Erik Foss’ DADA-esque collage on mounted on metal, is a portrait of Jack, a slave sold and bought on American soil. Not only humorous, but visually pleasing is the mixed media painting by Pat Conlon. His scrim on vinyl is fluorescent green and glitters as a backdrop to the words “It’s like feeding Alka Seltzer to Seagulls.” There are many other precious finds like drawings by Victor Timofeev and sculptures by Matisse Patterson.
One of my MA professors at NYU warned me about beginning and ending essays with quotes, but to follow The Stanton Chapter’s press release written by Lena Imamura that begins with an Andy Warhol quote, I will end my review with an E.B. White quote.
“This piece about New York was written in the summer of 1948 during a hot spell. The reader will find certain observations to be no longer true of the city, owing to the passage of time and the swing of the pendulum. I wrote not only during a heat wave but during a boom. The heat has broken, the boom has broken, and New York is not quite so feverish now as when the piece was written. The Lafayette Hotel, mentioned in passing, has passed despite the mention. But the essential fever of New York has not changed in any particular, and I have not tried to make revisions in the hope of bringing the thing down to date. To bring New York down to date, a man would have to be published at the speed of light- and not even Harper is that quick. I feel that it is the reader’s, not the author’s, duty to bring New York down to date; and I trust it will prove less a duty than a pleasure.”
Despite our current heat wave, A Cloudburst of Material Possessions: A Metaphor for the Myriad Considerations is a worthwhile investment after your sweet & sour bite from Guss’ Pickles on Orchard Street, and before your margarita to-go from El Sombrero. The exhibit continues through June 23, 2008.
