Commentary on my sculpture The Four Alimonies (Doorpost Cross III)
‘Before the Dawn, I saw a Prototype; Before the Tongs Pulled Up a Lobe of Sky: I Saw the Light! Reflected in Your Eye;’ is open by appointment at Triest in New York
The Four Alimonies (Doorpost Cross III), 2023
Discarded fence post, laser engravings, spray paint
Dimensions unknown
My sculpture exhibition opened at Triest two weekends ago. Now that we have the documentation I’ll start writing companion texts the way I did for the show at Gern last year.
Given that the aim of the exhibition is to awaken transcendental or revolutionary consciousness, part of my intention in partially blocking the entrance with one of the works was to force a confrontation with the wider context within which the show is embedded, with two points of focus.
The first one is social norms and incentives. At the opening, most people ended up falteringly searching for another entrance and then asking permission before going inside, even though they saw others already inside. I’m sure each of these people felt just a little shame and fear in being unsure of what to do, in the subsequent decision to either ask or not ask for permission, and, most of all, perhaps, regardless of the decision, in having no choice but to awkwardly duck down in front of other people at a social event, right in the middle of their spontaneous and half-unconscious scan for the identity and social standing of the other attendants.
I mean no aggression or criticism, my intention on the contrary is to enrich experience by gently disrupting the social performance and ideology. The psychodynamic, affective and cognitive phenomenology of social transactions is a source of fascination to me. People attend art openings for a constellation of reason. These reasons vary widely in their degree of subject awareness and ego alignment. Some are shameful and disavowed, some are hazy, some are calculatingly self-interested, some are generous, and one is divine: the desire to make contact with the infinite beauty and richness of the transcendental field as refracted through the unique prism of a particular tender and finite soul, the author of the work - in order to grow closer to God.
The ground invasion of Gaza began a few days before the opening, and images and videos of murdered children were swarming all across the internet, puncturing the emotional insulation anyone reading this usually has in place to dampen their subtle awareness of similar murders happening every day. The contemporaneity of this show and Liturgy’s tour cycle with the war isn’t something I can or want to ignore.
We have to lie to ourselves constantly to get by, lie to others, lie about what we really think feel and want. The lies are there for a reason; a square confrontation with the truth is a plunge into fire. It’s what we created lies to escape from.
Behind the paywall, you can read about the second point of focus I alluded to, as well as my process of creating this piece.
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