Observatory exhibition, Tahoe Gallery, Sierra Nevada University, Nevada January 2022 Mary Jeys and Sarah Logan
The work presented in Observatory was the first version of presenting from the archive of collected livestream videos. I presented a burning candle at a window at sunset on a TV monitor, a pot of water going from cold-poured to boiling on an iPad, and myself and my own watching and waiting on an iPhone. I installed a dorm room to call to the visitor’s mind and body an experience of watching and waiting at a networked happening in a site-specific sleeping quarters. I chose to perform toasting bread as an everyday activity that shifts bread or stale bread to palatable toast.
The work was available not only in the gallery, but also on Twitch whose daily active users spend an average of 95 minutes watching streamers stay at their camera for over 8 hours in any given day. The opportunity that I saw was to introduce my own artistic play into a place of durational long watching that might offer an introspective offering that could invite a togetherness across the experience of our screens.
I view this work as an invitation to consider our position of solo screen time as both a site of unknowing or otherspace that can invite or provoke emotional conditions for change within the visitor and to point to the place of online engagement as instructive in our solitude.
Untitled Portal, Candle Video of recorded livestream, video monitor Livestreamed October 18, 2021 TRT: 02:34:37
I created and co-curated this six week residency and exhibition. See below for detail photos and curatorial statement. Click “read more” to see postcard invitation and more installation photos.
Opening Reception: November 30th, 2018 6-9pm Artist Talk: Saturday, January 26th, 2019 2-4pm Closing Reception: February 16th, 2019 6-9pm
Regeneration has an embedded notion of loss. Loss of limb, loss of life, loss of deadweight. In this residency, we considered the work of rebuilding artistic practice after having lost something. Many of us have experienced loss in our community, in our perception of safety, in political decency, and in our personal economics as independent creators. In this residency, we recombined our efforts, tackled our own challenges and met them with powerful regenerative forces.
For six Sundays in the fall, artists Autumn Bree, Kate Godfrey, Constance Moore, Stephanie Potter Corwin, Tracey Rolandelli and Noga Wizansky met as a group with curators Mary Jeys and Shoshana Zambryski Stachel to discuss topics brought forth in their proposed projects. Weekly discussions addressed issues of regeneration and process as they related to each artist’s practice.
Given the curators’ interests in artist/gift economies and community arts access, artists were also encouraged to create companion works available in the gift shop during the fall/winter season. All artworks are on sale — both gallery-installed and smaller companion works available in the shop.
ArtVale Gallery 3463 Champion St. Oakland, CA 94602 WEDS-FRI: 1-7PM SAT: 12-6PM artvalegallery.com
