Angela - That Gallery Installation -

UPDATE 3/26

Hey all - I did end up creating a film related to this piece, actually for another class I am in, documenting the burial of the animals I used within this work in the mountains. It ended up incidentally being very near a makeshift gun range, which I think is very poetic. Here's the link if anyone would like to view!

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CfLCLCN3-Nk

UPDATE 3/6

In-progress image, promo image, photos of installation

UPDATE 2/26

    Well, today's the day, and I would say everything has gone relatively smoothly in spite of the long work time and my exhaustion. All of the artwork, including photos and sculptural components, have been installed. The only component missing is the plastic text labels that will be going on the wall within the space tomorrow morning - photos and video of the finished piece will be uploaded here tomorrow. Also, it seems that my blog has not been thorough enough in communicating what my thinking and understanding of this piece is, so I'm going to attach my statement and critique sheet here in case anyone would like a better understanding of the work. We can just pretend it's an interview in Widewalls or something. ;)

What is this piece about? What are you attempting to communicate?

    This piece explores themes common within my work - the ending of lives, decay, human-animal relationships, natural materials vs. representation of it, and the ephemeral. I hope the viewer, through this work, considers for a small window of time the idea of mortality, the fragility of life and the world we exist within. We all impact our habitats so heavily, in ways both intentional and unintentional. We thoroughly disrupt and sometimes destroy entire ecosystems via our environmental impact. Roadkill is one of the more minor of our impacts, and of course usually unintentional, but still deserves consideration. Animals, including birds, deer, elk, squirrels, rabbits and beyond, have been a revered and treasured part of many cultures past, including indigenous peoples both domestic and abroad. There is something tragic, I think, in the fact that seeing animals tossed aside the road or smashed into nothingness under cars is common all across the world, and in America particularly. Discarded, they are taken by the elements back into the world.

What materials have you chosen and why?

    I have sourced roadkill from around the area, a squirrel and a pigeon, and with assistance crudely gutted and mummified the animals with salt. Photos were taken of the collection site on my 35mm camera with Ilford filmstock, processed and digitized, and eight were printed on fine Asian inkjet paper. A plinth, fitted with a plastic cover, occupies the center of the gallery. Atop it are the pigeon and squirrel, sitting on a bed of salt (to maintain dryness) and buried in wax from thrifted candles. Synthetic blood has been dripped atop the animals. The photos are pinned to the surrounding walls, lights arranged and set up to softly light the walls and center display. Vinyl pressed labels containing text related to the work adorn the space. These materials couple that which is taken from the outdoors with an artful representation of it, a concept I have employed in previous installation work. The salt and wax hiding the animals, though serving a practical purpose (preservation), are also materials of the natural world, and connect to the materiality of deterioration - in some environments, decaying carcasses saponify, meaning fatty tissues are transformed into a wax-like substance. This is quite morbid, but one of the reasons I find the pairing of wax with themes of violence and death so interesting.

  How did your idea change as you progressed?

This concept began in a different place, with materials & themes considered much more crudely and with only a rough idea of execution. I initially wanted the slow melting of wax from a drop ceiling gradually over the duration of the piece to coat the animals, but this simply was not feasible due to the hazardous nature of that. I did not initially know how I was going to preserve the animals, this took some workshopping and help from friends. As I began the process of making fairly late, I had to work quickly and simplify the original concept to meet time and safety concerns. I feel that this markedly more minimal, quiet execution expresses my desire that the work feel somber and meditative rather than excessively chaotic or disturbing. The ideas here are difficult and ugly but I wanted this piece to be clean, considered, and comfortable to experience.

    What stands out in this piece that takes us as the viewer from installed work into an installation?

The sculptural portion of the installation is literally represented in the photographs on the walls, tying the three-dimensional part of the piece firmly to the two-dimensional. I spent much time on my lighting, measuring and even placement, and the cleaning and painting of the space. I covered exposed outlets and the doorstop and did my best to make the sculptural components feel united and clean. The space is excessively sprayed down with Lysol spray and Febreeze meant to reduce animal dander, and this will be occurring regularly, so hopefully I can keep the piece safe and smelling only like air freshener for the next few weeks.

What is working and what is not working?

I really don’t know the answer to this yet. This piece has taken a lot out of me and the whole making process has been very new and anxiety-inducing, and I say that as someone who shoots nude portraits and has signed an edition of prints with drops of my blood. I want to get feedback from you all and from some other folks before I try to pin down anything unsuccessful. I think that I’ve managed to clean up and reduce this absolutely insane concept down into a slick, well-considered example of what I am physically and conceptually capable of. It is a dead serious showing of what art means to me and how far I am willing to push myself.

Hindsight is 20/20. What would you do differently?

Not sure yet. I need to see how the animals hold up - I’m sure I could have done a better job with the preservation but I did not want them to seem simply like taxidermy. I might have printed the photos a bit larger, and probably would have shot more film - I had to shoot quickly because I was running in and out of the street so I had a lot of throwaway shots. With more time and better weather I probably would have found a better squirrel - this one was pretty smashed, frozen and picked clean when I got to it. The bird was a stroke of luck, I believe I got it the same day it was hit and it was in the very center of the lane so it sustained little damage or decay.

Roadsong: Statement 

    My art has a craving for the visceral. It is traumatized. It is a display of some of my most difficult lived experiences and ideas. I push myself to places that some may find extreme within my practice — why shouldn’t I? In our world, we are bombarded by unending information and content and stimuli. We turn to art and art experiences not only to have fun, but also to see and feel something real, and to provoke our minds and emotions. When experiencing art, we are given a portal through which, for just one moment, we can leave this world and enter a new one — a place of thoughtfulness and infinite possibility.

    In this world, I ask the viewer to consider their relationship with animals. We, as a species - what do we mean to the other inhabitants of this world? We all impact our habitats so heavily, in ways both intentional and unintentional. We thoroughly disrupt and sometimes destroy entire ecosystems via our environmental impact. Roadkill is one of the more minor of our impacts, and of course usually unintentional, but still deserves consideration. Animals and the lives of animals have been a revered and treasured part of many cultures past, including by indigenous peoples both domestic and abroad. There is something tragic, I think, in the fact that seeing animals tossed aside the road or smashed into nothingness under cars is common all across the world, and in America particularly. Discarded, they are taken by the elements back into the world. Have you hit a cat, antelope, crow or rabbit with your vehicle? What did you feel at that moment? Pity? Shame? Frustration? Inconvenience? Did you think about that animal, as it was retaken by nature, or dashed to pieces under other cars?

    I hope my work expresses a violent intensity that is not freakish or uncomfortable, but honest and brutally beautiful.

The following is poetry written to accompany this exhibit:

Bitter is the song of iron giants

who sweep 'cross lands as these

angry ground-shaking coal eaters

metal tube for guts

pilot blind to that which is small

all underneath rattled

slammed about

vapor spitters

aftermath creators

roadsong screechers

UPDATE 2/19

Hello all, 

We're getting quite close to installation, so I'm going to offer a quick little update. Sans any feedback I've decided to move forward with my first concept, but I don't know that I have the ability right now to build a drop ceiling and have any way to heat wax suspended from it, at least not in the span of time I have remaining.

Additionally, I've been hunting around for a large amount of beeswax, but I've been fairly unsuccessful and keep hitting walls, and I can't really afford to pay for that so I'm making some adaptions to the piece. The piece will not be active - while I would have liked for the wax to slowly melt over the piece's time in the gallery I shall instead be melting wax over the carcasses and into the gallery of my own accord during installation. I'm going to hunt for candles to thrift, and use those in conjunction with what beeswax and candle wax I already have available. This does allow me to recycle a material, and I hopefully I can use the color of wax in a way which adds to the work.

2/10/23

    Hey Ashley and everyone! The following is my thinking as to what I'll be doing for my That gallery space project/Materialistic installation, due 2/26. That feels quite close all of a sudden, doesn't it? 

    No matter. I've been thinking about this installation for some time. My work is always very concerned with questions of the natural and synthetic, which played a major role in past installations I've done. I love bringing the outdoors in, and questioning the relationship between my creations, which are manmade, and the sources of my materials. My work is also concerned with death, decay, endings, and violence. I enjoy imagery of violence and death, blood and decay. Endings are precious. 

    Two subjects/materials have played a major role in my other work recently - first of these is beeswax, which I've been enjoying playing with in my print work, melting together papers and fibers and ink and crayon into creations which are quite skin-like and eerie, and objects as much as images. Beeswax feels so spiritual a material for me - it's a bountiful material that's seen use in cultures worldwide since the dawn of time. It's created by a community of little creatures conspiring together to make something, and I think that's beautiful. Wax also has such intriguing material properties - it lasts a long time, unless broken or acted upon by heat. The fluid and solid nature of wax has really spurred growth in my printmaking, and I hope it can do the same for my installation work.

These wax prints are beautiful Angela. I could imagine these covering the walls as well as the roadkill photographs so that we are bombarded visually by the graphic deceased animal carcasses. The idea is impact. 

My job as viewer of this blog is to see what you give me and respond to it. My comments are never coming from what I like or don't like. My job is not to push you down a particular path but to help direct you or help you see what path you are already on. These pieces shine light on a particular path that is visceral and full of texture and light. They read as scarred flesh that could connect to the viewer just as an actual carcass would.  Especially the second example given here. If we make art that the viewer cannot stop thinking about after they view it- that is the power of art.

If the idea is impact, I think that is successful in the final work.

    The second of these materials is roadkill, which has acted more as subject for me than material, up until now. I think there's incredible violence to roadkill - we hit a squirrel or an antelope, and it ends that animal's life in a flash. After this, we drive over it, and go about our day - it's an inconvenience for us. Few think "I just extinguished a life" when they hit and kill an animal. This is both fascinating and sad, to me. Roadkill, I feel, is very much a metaphor for our greater attitude towards our environment. We enact great violence upon our world and its other inhabitants, and think nothing of it. We don't even bury the animals, we just toss them off to the side of the road and let nature handle our mess.

    Some of my recent photographic work on roadkill:

    I'd like to take these material/conceptual interests, and meld them together for my installation in the That gallery space. My first sketch and primary (favorite) concept:

    Within this space, a drop ceiling is created. From the drop ceiling, beeswax is melted and attached in a manner intended to resemble stalactites. Some sort of heating element or heater within the drop ceiling or attached to the wall heats the ends of the stalactites just enough so that they melt, and drip down onto the floor. Underneath the stalactites, collected roadkill will be placed. As the wax melts, it will drip slowly down onto the animal carcasses. Slowly, over time, the animals will be "buried" underneath the beeswax, the burial they were never given by those who hit and killed them.

The heat is a liability. Addressed in final work.

    There are a number of major concerns with this concept. Firstly - the collection of roadkill, which has legality concerns. I don't honestly care, but I would like this piece done right. Bailey has contact with a specimen collector with a license for collecting roadkill, which gives me a solution there. Second concern, the procurement of a LOT of beeswax. Mark suggested I get in touch with some local honey crafters and ask if they have any dirty wax they would be willing to spare. Alternatively, beeswax can be bought in bulk, roughly $150 seems to be able to get me 40-50lbs, which would be more than enough and give me extra for my other work. I'm willing to put that money forward if necessary. Ashley, thoughts?

Now that we have discussed this, let me clear, that no one wants to squash any students artistic voice/vision, but if at any point, the treated roadkill is a hazard, you will remove it. Art is not worth making anyone sick, including you. Understood and addressed above.

    Other major concerns - it may be difficult to figure a way to heat the wax gently enough that it melts slowly. This heat is also going to create heat within the gallery, and depending on the freshness of the roadkill, this is going to create some smells... I don't mind if that's a small part of the piece, the decay, but I don't want it to become so repellant that viewers don't want to experience the piece. Is there a way to ventilate the rooms?

Alternatively, I could create clear barriers in glass or acrylic around the animals - this wouldn't mitigate smell, but might make viewers more comfortable in the space. That said, this would create another expense, and I think that it removes some of the confrontation - we killed these animals. Most people have made roadkill at some point. I want that viscerality present.

    

    There are going to be viewers turned off by this piece. I don't mind that, but I don't want the piece to feel gross for shock's sake - I want the decay and life and death of the animals I use to feel respected.

My second concept sketch (be nice, I'm not the best illustrator):

    This piece would also involve animal carcasses, however in a very different manner. In this space, roadkill would be suspended in scenes recreating what the roadkill might have been doing in its life. Here, I have an antelope standing atop a rock and squirrels suspended on tree branches, but this could be anything - rabbits in a garden, squirrels on a garbage can. The roadkill would probably have to be attached at multiple points, sort of like a puppet, attached to the surface but with monofilament or string suspending limbs to suggest motion.

    This concept has conceptual and technical concerns of its own. First, the animals would have to be fairly fresh and whole, in order to have the integrity to be suspended or placed. Secondly, though the visual result might be similar, the animals would not be taxidermied or preserved, and thus might decay in the space and sort of fall apart, which could be interesting but also might present issues. I could cool the space with, say, a swamp cooler in order to better preserve the animals, as well as make the sensory connection with cold and the elements. Maybe bring fans in to simulate wind? This concept would require me to manipulate the roadkill more - I don't mind this, but I would like to preserve my sanity and keep my food in my stomach, so I might have to stick with smaller animals. Lighting would become important in this piece - how best to light the animals so that they feel natural, how to present the scene.

    This piece has the potential to become more gross than the first concept, as the animals are not being covered by any material and would also be more eye level with a viewer, rather than simply existing on the ground. Again, I want us to be confronted and question our relationship with animals, but I don't want anyone to be overwhelmed or anxious about entering the space. I want these ideas to feel like sacred, respectful, considered spaces, not like corpse dumps. If anyone has feelings or ideas about how I could help the accessibility of these ideas, please comment!

Shooting into the Corner, Anish Kapoor (fuck him but this piece is neat), 2008/2009

Stalagmite (for Nicolas Steno), Chris Sauter, date unknown

Another artist working with roadkill in interesting ways ~ (3:17)