Lucia Love: Reflecting Pool by CUE Art Foundation

LUCIA LOVE

2014/15

LUCIA LOVE REFLECTING POOL

CUE ART FOUNDATION

NOVEMBER 1 - DECEMBER 11, 2014 1

Each year, CUE invites ten individuals from across the country to anonymously nominate up to three artists for the solo exhibition program. Artists are invited to apply, and the final selection is made by an independent jury each fall. Jurors for the 2014-15 season were Magdalena Sawon, owner/director of Postmasters Gallery; Papo Colo, artist and former founder/director of Exit Art; and Gregory Amenoff, artist and former Chair, Visual Arts, Columbia University School of the Arts.

BOARD OF DIRECTORS Gregory Amenoff Theodore S. Berger Sanford Biggers Thomas G. Devine Thomas K.Y. Hsu Vivian Kuan Corina Larkin Brian D. Starer

CURATORIAL ADVISORY COUNCIL Gregory Amenoff Katie Cercone Lynn Crawford Trenton Doyle Hancock Pablo Helguera Paddy Johnson Sharon Lockhart Andrea Zittel

CUE FELLOWS

STAFF

Polly Apfelbaum Theodore S.Berger, Chair Ian Cooper William Corbett Michelle Grabner Eleanor Heartney Deborah Kass Corina Larkin Jonathan Lethem Rossana Martinez Juan Sรกnchez Irving Sandler, Senior Fellow Carolyn Somers Lilly Wei

Dena Muller Executive Director Beatrice Wolert-Weese Deputy Director Jessica Gildea Programs Director Hannah Malyn Development Manager Shona Masarin-Hurst Programs Assistant

CUE ART FOUNDATION IS A DYNAMIC VISUAL ARTS CENTER DEDICATED TO CREATING ESSENTIAL CAREER AND EDUCATIONAL OPPORTUNITIES FOR EMERGING ARTISTS OF ALL AGES. THROUGH EXHIBITIONS, ARTS EDUCATION, AND PUBLIC PROGRAMS, CUE PROVIDES ARTISTS AND AUDIENCES WITH SUSTAINING AND MEANINGFUL EXPERIENCES AND RESOURCES.

LUCIA LOVE Lucia Love hails from the deep woods of Connecticut and currently resides in Brooklyn. Her dream jobs have included (but are not limited to) illustrating Magic: The Gathering cards, operating fighter jets, being the reincarnation of Pierre Cardin, and creating a cartoon for Adult Swim about a rabbit who works as a surgeon haunted by compulsive masturbation. Her work is unbound by a specific medium and has been exhibited internationally in venues such as Family Business, the Last Brucennial, Spring/Break Art Show, and B2OA gallery.

STATEMENT Fantasy is the driving force behind all human endeavors, from the mass production of spoons, to the baroque creation of a symphony played by gimps in rhinestone penguin suits. Every invention is born from the marriage of vision and necessity. The combination of an agro object like a knife with a generally passive object like a party straw, creates a surreal opening in logic. New possible courses of action arise through its creation—like freaking people out at restaurants. Its function is invented by its creation. Successful fantasies defy the logic of the time they are born into, and reveal our physical landscape to yield infinite combinations of actions, gestures, plot points, and sensations. They stick with you when you’re paying your taxes, and nag you to tear your suit off and go swimming with dolphins instead. Nonsense becomes offensive in these struggles with common knowledge—as at the point in childhood when we are convinced that ripping a dollar bill in half does not give you the ability to buy two ice creams instead of one. The cost of an ice cream like all other definitions is an agreement subject to change. Maintaining this knowledge is the root of freedom.

IMAGES

Stabby Straw - WO8 Plow Shin (detail), 2014

Plumbing tubes, fiberglass, high density foam, wax, ashes, carbon heat treated steel 10’ x 3’ x 3’

Stabby Straw - WO8 Plow Shin, 2014 Plumbing tubes, fiberglass, high-density foam, wax, ashes, carbon heat treated steel 10’ x 3’ x 3’

Stabby Straw - LOL205 Plowshare, 2014

Plumbing tubes, fiberglass, high-density foam, wax, ashes, carbon heat treated steel 10’ x 3’ x 3’

Opposite

Orificial Cup, 2014

Magicsculpt, wire, acrylic 6” x 2.5”x 2”

Above

Orificial Cup Platter with Black Thumbs, 2014

Two Sunny D bottles, a bowl, a plastic platter, magic sculpt, fondant, ashes, charcoal, fondant, cotton 24” x 12” x 12”

Fountain Base, 2014 Cast iron, plastic plumbing, black water 16” x 14” x 12”

Fountain Break, 2014 Wall chunks, plumbing pipes, wire, magic sculpt, black water Dimensions variable

Stabby Straw - Row Crop Sweep, 2014 Plumbing tubes, fiberglass, high-density foam, wax, ashes, carbon heat treated steel 10’ x 3’ x 3’

Original Handheld Stabby Straw, 2014

Party straw, X-Acto blades, wire, hot glue 6” x 1” x 1”

Above

Wall Smear / Cave Painting, 2014

Tempera, chalk, pencil on wall 24” x 18”

Opposite

Pages 18-21

Pencil on wall 6” x 6”

Single channel video, silent, 13 min. Directed by Jillian McManemin, Cinematography by William Stewart, Performance by Kinetic Architecture

Wall Drawing / Runners with Stabby Straws, 2014

The Orificial Cup (selected stills), 2014

Clockwise from above Elements 2014, Jungle 2014, Fascination 2014 Ink on paper 8” x 10” Opposite Dining, 2014 Ink on paper 8” x 10”

Performer, 2014

Digital image, dimensions variable

WRITING

THREE-DIMENSIONAL ALLEGORY LUCIA LOVE’S REFLECTING POOL

LOUIS DOULAS

Lucia Love’s 2014 installation, “Reflecting Pool,” at CUE Art Foundation is theatrical and dramatic, and unlike most conventional exhibitions, in which the default setting is a brightly lit white cube, hers is a darkened, immersive environment, shadowy and murky, like a dream, or rather, like a nightmare. The wooden floors of the gallery space are sheathed in black construction tarp and await spillover—though if there are any stains, blood, or saliva, for example, they will be invisible to us. Scattered haphazardly across this black tarp are what appear to be random objects of dubious utility, seemingly dropped in place mid-use, perhaps in a moment of trepidation. Precarity extends to innocent looking objects, the small and medium-sized ceramic cups arranged in aggregates across the space, whose vessels are either too narrow or too wide to be of any use—a domestic

and survival horror. A faint hum and the sound of running water turns our attention to the far-end of the space, and we see black liquid pouring from out of a busted pipe sprouting from the wall, its infrastructure, its bundles of pipes and wires, all exposed. It reads as a junky impromptu fountain of some sort, or a slop sink without its control knobs. The dimly spot-lit wall, from which its mechanical organs dangle, acts as its splashguard, its stains let us know it’s been spewing dark matter for quite some time now. In various corners, two huge, monolithic, ash-grey bendy straw sculptures tower over all. A third is toppled over, defenseless, vulnerable even, but in a second take, it is alarming, its base is comprised of thick steel tractor blades, threatening dismemberment with one misplaced step. There is a glint in the darkness. It’s a hook, closely resembling the spoke of a fireplace poker, pierced in the wall, fastened in place like a sword in stone that awaits withdrawal. Too dark to see from afar, the walls, upon closer inspection, reveal expressive scratch and scuff marks, signifying physical activity, struggle maybe, a scrawled gestural history of the space. Something happened here. The Orificial Cup (2014), the thirteen minute video accompanying the exhibition, projected in the space before the hallway leading into Love’s dark garden described above, directs the interpretation of these objects. We realize that something has happened here and we are experiencing the aftermath. The video is a collaborative piece, produced in tandem with artist and writer Jillian McManemin in conjunction

with Kinetic Architecture, lead by performance artist Faux Pas le Fae, and is Love’s version of theatre, selfdescribed as a “three-dimensional allegory” alluding perhaps to the way the sculptures inform and structure the narrative. Formally, the video strongly points towards Butoh, a modern avant-garde Japanese dance-form construed in anguish with carefully paced, slowly-executed motions of the body. It borrows the characteristic white body paint of Butoh and its performers’ often times grotesque movements and macabre, tormented expressions. The Orificial Cup begins with a Runner in winged sneakers who attempts to deliver a package, an object of some kind wrapped in brown craft paper—though we don’t know what yet. Elsewhere, the Crowd, comprised of two actors, eagerly awaiting this package, grows infatuated with a black-water spewing fountain and attempts to configure its spout but soon grows bored with their lack of progress. Immediately eyeing our Runner, they yank the package from her arms, and giddy with excitement, smear her with yogurt while violently chucking berries into her mouth. They kill her this way. The Crowd rips apart the craft paper, unveiling a tusk-like steel hook: what to do with this? Now buzzing, but unsure of what to make of their new object, the Crowd transfers their curiosity to a Dunce who salvages the dead Runner’s orthopedics, then takes the hook, and with almost clairvoyant intention, begins scrawling across the walls, wobbling along the way in a ritualistic trance, as if this was what the hook wanted along. But once more the Crowd interrupts, believing now to have understood this object, this

hook’s true purpose. They grab it from the Dunce, but before having a go, a lord-like Authority enters the scene and everyone cowers. The Authority assesses. The Authority directs the Dunce back to her corner, then turns her attention to the Crowd, who upon receiving the Authority’s gaze, whips each other with the hopes of pleasing their lord (like out of a gritty ’80s S&M scene). The Authority laughs, but thirsts for more. Looking for deeper pleasure, the Authority severs the Crowd’s thumbs, collecting each one so that she may individually coddle them later. The Authority orders a holding of the court and a feast. The Dunce observes from a distance. Are the sculptures and objects featured in both the gallery space and The Orificial Cup, mere props? Are they simply artifacts from the video? Or are the video and the sculptures on the same level? The choice to exhibit both the video and its objects is an intriguing one, evocative of installations from artists such as Ryan Trecartin or Trisha Baga. Indeed, the bodies in the video oftentimes seem to be coerced by a force other than themselves, that is, by the objects. For example, the orificial cups, the small and mediumsized ceramic cups distributed around the gallery, can be read symbolically: the cup’s mouths are an orifice capable of displaying acceptance (admission, acknowledgement) or denial (disapproval, refusal of belief). The cups that feature a wider mouth and shallower body represent the former, and the more constricted ones, the latter. The objects become personified in virtue of these traits, sexualized too

(consider the innuendos implied by “wide” and “narrow”). Objects are perhaps typically thought of as extensions of the body, but in this case that convention is inverted, and the body becomes an extension of the object. Thus, the sculptures become the agents rather than the actors, as Love explains: But if you see the body as a straw (roughly cylindrical with an opening at either end that channels resources through it and has a desire to do so), then when a person is holding the hook they have been innovated by the tool in the same way that blades are an innovation to the straw. This is another instance of reflection. The story is only able to unfold properly with the entrance of the tool that facilitates action, and each character uses it differently.1 Our Runner recalls Hermes, the messenger of the Greek gods known for his fleetness and ingenuity. The winged sneakers the artist has fashioned for the Runner are of course a nod to his signature winged sandals, but Love’s version is clunkier, unfashionable white sneakers that appear to be the cheapest pair of orthopedic walkers on Zappos.com, with heavy wings that flop downward with every step. Supremely dorky and comfortable, Love conflates movement with responsibility, the responsibility of delivering the beautiful instrument of cruelty, the Hook. The Crowd sips on black water, perhaps not entirely desirable, but darkness has already infected them, they are fed and nourished by it, influenced by it, entertained by

it. (Notice, that The Runner and Dunce never indulge in the dark water.) The Crowd represents anticipation: waiting for an instrument of cruelty to commence the party and get it going. But upon receiving this instrument, the Hook, they timidly pass it on to the Dunce, out of fear. But there is a voyeuristic, perhaps masochistic fearfulness in their hesitation, for they want to see how it will all go down, how it will end. The Hook is a magic object, similar to the bladed bendy straws—instruments of bloodlust that impale its victim’s flesh, so the fiend wielding it can suck blood through the spokes—but omits the ability to “channel” anything through its body. But, the human body might also be thought of as a straw too, for it is cylindrical and has openings on either end. Thus, when the Crowd obtains the Hook, they have been, in a sense, innovated upon by the object, the tool, similar to the way that the barbed tractor blades and the straw have been innovated. Love wants the tool, all the objects, to facilitate the action by way of each character navigating its use-function differently. In Ways of Worldmaking (1978), the philosopher Nelson Goodman proposes that in our employment of verbal and nonverbal symbol systems we, in effect, create our own idiosyncratic versions of the world. In addition, these versions of the world are cognitively valuable descriptions. Love’s exhibition, “Reflecting Pool,” provides us with just such a description; it is a startling series of events and objects, toeing the line between violence and desire, horror and whimsy—an invitation that is as absurd as it is dangerous. In the

artist’s own words, “A successful fantasy can inform your daily life by sticking to logical systems that come from familiar life. Once the allegory is fleshed out in the fantasy, it may serve as a meditative tool, a reflective device for our own lives.”

1 In both email and in-person exchange with the artist. I make no delineations between the two. All quoted material is derived from these exchanges.

This essay was written as part of the Young Art Critics Mentoring Program, a partnership between AICAUSA (US section of International Association of Art Critics) and CUE, which appoints established art critics to serve as mentors for emerging writers. In 2014, CUE joined forces with Art21, combining the Young Art Critic program with the Art21 Magazine Writer-in-Residence initiative. Each writer composes a long-form critical essay on one of CUE’s exhibiting artists for publication in CUE’s exhibition catalogue, which is also published by Art21 in its online magazine. Please visit aicausa.org for more information on AICA USA, or cueartfoundation.org to learn how to participate in this program. Any quotes are from interviews with the author unless otherwise specified. No part of this essay may be reproduced without prior consent from the author. Lilly Wei is AICA’s Coordinator for the program this season. For additional arts-related writing, please visit on-verge.org.

Louis Doulas is a writer based in New York. Currently, he is the Associate Editor at SNAP Editions. Previously, he was an Editorial Fellow at Rhizome at the New Museum of Contemporary Art, the New York Correspondent at e-flux, and the Founder and Editor-in-Chief of Pool. Doulas is a regular contributor to Rhizome.org, and has published in magazines, journals, and websites such as Art in America, BOMB Magazine, Berlin-based Junk Jet, and WOW HUH, as well as the exhibition catalogue “In Over the Valley” at Steve Turner Contemporary [Los Angeles, 2013]. He has also contributed a book chapter to the Unlike Us Reader [Amsterdam: Institute of Network Cultures at the Amsterdam University of Applied Sciences, 2013]. As a lecturer and panelist, he recently spoke at the Museum of Arts and Design, New York. He received his BFA from the School of the Art Institute of Chicago in 2011.

Mentor Thomas Micchelli is an artist, writer, and filmmaker as well as co-editor of the online critical review Hyperallergic Weekend. His paintings, drawings and videos have been exhibited in New York, Los Angeles, Philadelphia and elsewhere, most recently at Norte Maar, Centotto, Studio 10 and Schema Projects, all in Bushwick, Brooklyn. In addition to Hyperallergic, his essays, interviews and reviews have appeared in The Brooklyn Rail, Art 21, Bookforum.com, ART HAPS and NY Arts. He is also the co-editor of the book On Curating: Interviews with Ten International Curators (DAP, 2009). He holds a BFA from the Cooper Union for the Advancement of Science and Art and an MFA from the University of Pennsylvania.

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Catalogue design by Shona Masarin-Hurst