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16/10/2003

David Shapiro

Jack the Pelican, New York

Consumed!

eyewash@ Jack the Pelican Presents

A supermarket-style installation of 2 years of boxes, bags and cans

For two years, acclaimed filmmaker, artist and native son of the early Williamsburg scene, David Shapiro has been saving every package, bag, bottle or jar that once contained his food or drink. He fills the space at Jack the Pelican Presents gallery to the brim with this bodega-sized collection of garbage.

At first glance, one sees a food store, complete with aisles and signs. Contents are neatly arranged on pristine commercial display shelves. But all the packages are empty. The food has been eaten. The remnant traces of food, washed away.

The selection evidences the unique dietary habits and desires of consumer David Shapiro. -Indeed, it is his self-portrait. And he completes it with an ambient soundtrack monologue detailing the skewed logic of his brand loyalties. But if, in some ways, he appears idiosyncratic and quirky, in others, he registers as a typical byproduct of American superabundance and marketing. -The scale of his consumption is monstrous.

The trajectory of Shapiro's preoccupation with food can be traced to his lifelike heads cast in tofu, shown at Liebman Magnan in 1999. Parallel diaristic concerns are evident in such earlier works as Nickel Bags (Lavanderia Fundacio, Barcelona, 2000), an ongoing visual diary of small found objects.

The year before he stopped throwing out his garbage, David Shapiro garnered international attention with Keep the River On Your Right: A Modern Cannibal Tale, an award winning documentary he co-directed and produced with his sister, Laurie Gwen Shapiro, about the painter and writer Tobias Schneebaum.

David Shapiro is a widely exhibited artist, award-winning documentarian, presently working on two feature-length films. Selected venues include MOMA, Liebman Magnan, Exit Art, The University of Illinois, Herron Test-Site and Wake Forest University. Selected publications include ArtNews, The New York Times, The New Yorker, The Village Voice, World Art, Time Out, Esquire, The Daily News, Spin Magazine and Entertainment Weekly.

*eyewash was started in June 1987 by artist/curator Larry Walczak on the 3rd floor of a turn-of-the-century residential building in Williamsburg. Having lost that space in January 2002, it has become a "migratory gallery," either collaborating with other galleries, as with this exhibition, or producing shows in borrowed or otherwise temporarily acquired spaces. The production of this exhibition is a collaboration between eyewash and Jack the Pelican Presents

Opening: Friday, October 17, 7-9pm

Gallery hours: Friday-Monday, 12-6pm

Jack the Pelican Presents
487 Driggs Ave. between N. 9 and N. 10,
Bedford stop on the L train Williamsburg,
718-782-0183

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