Tabula Rasa is a group show of work discussing/showing the idea of the table and the discourses we have with this object and space. It is not only a matter of what a table is but also what takes place at or on a table. Our language appreciates the literal and metaphorical potential of this everyday object: when we are open to possibilities, we say All ideas are on the table. These interactions--from a romantic dinner for two to a large board meeting--span every class and social space. This show’s focus on the table examines these crucial instants and decisions.
The table is, by custom, an area where differing or even opposing representatives can be assembled in temporary (and perhaps artificial) harmony. Several of the artists of Tabula Rasa explore this notion. Monika Sziladi’s composite photographs gather people literally at the table. Though the subjects are unaware they have been brought together, the tension is still palpable. Catherine Telford-Keough, too, gathers a dinner party--a very usual guest list of father and daughter, but both are compelled to dine by an arbitrary, unsettling script. Or is arbitrary and unsettling the rule even for the most casual dinner gathering? How many of us have turned to altered states of consciousness to escape such a table? Frank DeLeon Jones’ photos plumb this escapism, grasping at the edges of an evening where every guest has retired to a mental Green World.
What is served forth on the table is often more important than who sits beside it. Tamar Ettun offers several courses of tension in transit: a riding mount, a sail, a jetliner, wheel-forms, all abstracted via breakage, repair, or recovery. Tension is also on the table in Sam Anderson’s sound and sculpture. Here, the figures are too placid, so doll-like that the idea of play deeply unsettles. Steve Paneccasio unsets the table entirely, presenting photographs of tablecloths in stark detail. Each flaw in the cloth holds a story, but absent a storyteller, the imperfections may also be a source of self-conscious worry. Conversely, Nate Heiges’ tablecloth is anything but self-conscious: a sheer, composed drape of fishnet. And if its covering has become a shapely skirt or stocking, then what carnal role has the table itself adopted?
Extreme perspectives add a final approach to the table. Shanti Grumbine uses one long lens to look through another: a photo of Afghans dining at their blanket-table in the New York Times is erased and cut down, but its meaning--and the unmistakable context of the Grey Lady--persist. At the other end of the spectrum, someone has become so involved in Lorraine Dauw’s table of cast foam that they have taken a “bite,” blurring the lines of table, meal, and guest. But, like all its peers in Tabula Rasa, the table still remains a mannered space.
How have table manners developed, and how do these inform our lives? And what does it mean to willfully remove oneself from these contexts--when the table becomes a bed, a canvas; when circumstance and fast food make our work-desks and laps into the kitchen table? To step away from the table signals an end to negotiations. Tabula Rasa instead presses and explores these ordinary negotiations with the world.
Sam Anderson
Lorraine Dauw
Frank De Leon-Jones
Tamar Ettun
Shanti Grumbine
Nate Heiges
Steven Paneccasio
Monika Sziladi
Catherine Telford-Keogh
http://curiousmatter.org/tabula-rasa-opening-soon/
http://hyperallergic.com/56252/a-blank-slate-and-some-curious-matter/
http://blogs.artinfo.com/ontheground/2012/08/20/sur-la-table-artists-reinvent-the-table-at-curious-matter/
The table is, by custom, an area where differing or even opposing representatives can be assembled in temporary (and perhaps artificial) harmony. Several of the artists of Tabula Rasa explore this notion. Monika Sziladi’s composite photographs gather people literally at the table. Though the subjects are unaware they have been brought together, the tension is still palpable. Catherine Telford-Keough, too, gathers a dinner party--a very usual guest list of father and daughter, but both are compelled to dine by an arbitrary, unsettling script. Or is arbitrary and unsettling the rule even for the most casual dinner gathering? How many of us have turned to altered states of consciousness to escape such a table? Frank DeLeon Jones’ photos plumb this escapism, grasping at the edges of an evening where every guest has retired to a mental Green World.
What is served forth on the table is often more important than who sits beside it. Tamar Ettun offers several courses of tension in transit: a riding mount, a sail, a jetliner, wheel-forms, all abstracted via breakage, repair, or recovery. Tension is also on the table in Sam Anderson’s sound and sculpture. Here, the figures are too placid, so doll-like that the idea of play deeply unsettles. Steve Paneccasio unsets the table entirely, presenting photographs of tablecloths in stark detail. Each flaw in the cloth holds a story, but absent a storyteller, the imperfections may also be a source of self-conscious worry. Conversely, Nate Heiges’ tablecloth is anything but self-conscious: a sheer, composed drape of fishnet. And if its covering has become a shapely skirt or stocking, then what carnal role has the table itself adopted?
Extreme perspectives add a final approach to the table. Shanti Grumbine uses one long lens to look through another: a photo of Afghans dining at their blanket-table in the New York Times is erased and cut down, but its meaning--and the unmistakable context of the Grey Lady--persist. At the other end of the spectrum, someone has become so involved in Lorraine Dauw’s table of cast foam that they have taken a “bite,” blurring the lines of table, meal, and guest. But, like all its peers in Tabula Rasa, the table still remains a mannered space.
How have table manners developed, and how do these inform our lives? And what does it mean to willfully remove oneself from these contexts--when the table becomes a bed, a canvas; when circumstance and fast food make our work-desks and laps into the kitchen table? To step away from the table signals an end to negotiations. Tabula Rasa instead presses and explores these ordinary negotiations with the world.
Sam Anderson
Lorraine Dauw
Frank De Leon-Jones
Tamar Ettun
Shanti Grumbine
Nate Heiges
Steven Paneccasio
Monika Sziladi
Catherine Telford-Keogh
http://curiousmatter.org/tabula-rasa-opening-soon/
http://hyperallergic.com/56252/a-blank-slate-and-some-curious-matter/
http://blogs.artinfo.com/ontheground/2012/08/20/sur-la-table-artists-reinvent-the-table-at-curious-matter/