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5/11/2010

Weasel

Inmangallery, Houston

Organized by Chelsea Beck and Kurt Mueller

Hamlet : Do you see yon cloud that’s almost in shape of a camel?
Polonius: By the mass, and ‘tis like a camel indeed.
Hamlet : Methinks it is like a weasel.
Polonius: It is backed like a weasel.
Hamlet : Or like a whale?
Polonius: Very like a whale.
Hamlet : No, i’ faith ‘tis bear shaped.
Polonius: It doth darkeneth its countenance as a bear doth.

from Hamlet, Act III, Scene ii

Discursivity neglects to present a vision of the truth claim as contrapuntal rhetoric; instead it is satisfied by the apparent truth of the claim in even its meanest form, to say little of the linguistic tetherings which bind it to the Sturm und Drang of the material world. To negate a thing’s existence draws it instead nearer to a tangible world form, ennobling it by virtue of floating ludic identity, imbuing it with the rage of lions long since ceased roaring. It is an act of violence to sever the optic nerve. It is an act of brilliance, however, to incite the audience to perform such self-directed surgery given a willingness to participate in its own deception.
By such measures does Hamlet conduct Polonius through a meditative trance of representational receptivity in which the cloud both see above them transforms at Hamlet’s will.

It is not by mere cogitation that one becomes a Minotaur. The fiction of the self enacts a fragile ego-grade disposition upon ultra- and super-classed ur-fictions, be they the products of ideological sharecropping, aspirational socioeconomic set pieces, ahistoric swelling, or some apt combination of the above. Limited transactional alliances may occur between the visual and the perceptible, but only under duress does a divergent plateau emerge from the thousand possibles. Technology is very strict on the following point: there are no Minotaurs, except plausible ones. If we enlarge “the plausible” to include other mazes, other teleological systems, and other strings by which to be led through said mazes, we must also challenge the inertia of sight. The rock that floats is not the same as the rock that sinks.

In this spirit, Inman Gallery is delighted to present Weasel, an exhibition of recent works by Maurizio Cattelan, Mads Lynnerup, Eva and Franco Mattes aka 0100101110101101.ORG, Jim Nolan, Brina Thurston, Karla Wozniak and Joe Zane. Comprising a wealth of generic practices, the demonstrably subtle effect of which being to lead, as Hamlet does, the viewer, as Hamlet does, “by the very nose,” Weasel endeavors to question rigid lineage(s) of perception in the visual. Works range from Cattelan’s sculptural caricature of hegemonic knee-jerking to Wozniak’s wry take on the American jeremiad, at all times confronting the viewer with a certainty of the abject.

Image: Eva and Franco Mattes aka 0100101110101101.ORG, Catt (Fake Cattelan sculpture) (detail), 2010. Taxidermy cat and bird, polyurethane resin, cage, wood, 55 x 40 x 40 cm

Opening Reception: Saturday November 6 th, 6:00 – 8:00pm

Inman Gallery Annex
Fridays and Saturdays, 10am – 6pm
and by appointment

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