Misplaces - New York USA
Collective integrated by: Kit Cheung, Benjamin Cohen, Mathew Cohen, Daniel Holguin, Kaja Kühl, Marek Milde, Kristina Milde, Natalia Porter, Allison Schlegel, Luis Villegas and Philipp von Dalwig.
Several individuals with diverse backgrounds and points of view collaborate in the design and execution of a three-dimensional structure. By assigning the participants a set of spatial, material, and social constraints, they are placed in a situation similar to a design experience.
"At MISPLACES the design processes can be thought of as a game, therefore the established rules and goals for this project will be considered as such. The distribution of "plots" within the structure is based on an irregular 3D lattice informed by the conditions of the gallery. The participants are encouraged to allow their individual work to physically interact with the work of the others. This is achieved within the constraints of, and making apparent, the lattice within the gallery. The result is a structure whose rules are created in a pattern where the movement/decision of one individual or person affects the shape/decisions of the entire group." Holguin+Porter, curators of MISPLACES.
Currently the "collective" redefines the idea of the solo artist, and/or formulates a talk among diverse participants. Neither all collectives are interested in producing pieces of art, nor in having references based on aesthetic languages. They simply seek to experience a formal development with parameters established by real or fictitious situations, formal or abstract ones.
MISPLACES is an installation that was created by a collective that meets a group of people with diverse backgrounds and personalities. The installation arises like an alternative of a continuous work of experimentation that is not necessarily placed as work of art, investigation or information, but at the same time it could fall in all and each one of those categories.
MISPLACES is defined within a restricted space accentuated inside a graphic representation on the floor where is exhibited. The representation is carried out with insulating white tape, the only common and obligatory material to use among the participants. At the beginning, the installation is formed with pieces of plexiglas and metal that are structured in a precise and rational manner. Then, the pieces are diluted in white tapes that generate a rope created "in situ". A wall interrupts the process and suddenly crystallizes the totality of the piece leading to a punctual structure that embraces and perforates a plastic skin that tried to create the original module of the installation; and finally yields before a pivotal curtain that interrupts and confronts the parts.
After the curtain, a wall of plastic blocks is smoothly created. It contains, like intestine, the residual pieces of the installation. It is subtly after this, that a seductive and fragile composition arrives, examines and tests the essence of the piece. It is as if the complete work is represented in a miniature ideal. At the end of the piece, it's emphasized the desire to conjugate the parts; a likewise fragile structure that is formed with conductive cables, embraces and illuminates the piece from beginning to end.
The interaction among the collaborators, all from different nationalities, consolidates strange and inexact fusions, but at the same time these fusions become attractive and sensual. The installation represents an extraction of a microcosm in which we all live, like a utopia. Not only each part of the three-dimensional lattice fights for ownership affecting the following one, but they also search for survival as units inside the utopian puzzle that tries to formulate.
MISPLACES plays the "Concrete Utopia" that sympathizes with socialist ideals of the 60's modernity, says Ana Tiscornia, director of the Amelie Wallace Gallery in New York, where the installation is on exhibition. Nevertheless, it is certain that the utopia itself volatizes and is affected by the social interactions of its creators. MISPLACES grows, unfolds and lives, but is ephemeral. It represents breaking moments and frustration as well as unique sensations, possession, fascination and detachment, is flexible and it will continue mutating.
