Xavier Cha
28 Feb - 28 Mar 2009
XAVIER CHA
“Third I”
February 28th to March 28th, 2009
Opening reception Friday, March 28th 6-8 PM
It could be true that we're composites of things outside of us. Placing, peeling, replicating, repeating, these actions imposed on Xavier Cha's subjects imply that one is not enough. She suggests through photographs, video, and performers that we can't really do this on our own, and if we can't find who it is we really are we may as well try to make another version. It is through repeated failure that we begin to constitute ourselves.
You're watching TV, or walking down the street and pass by shop windows with their sun-bleached posters. You see new hand cream, hair extensions, all those products and subtle alterations that could bolster your sense of contentment, coax you along on your walk from house, to subway, to work feeling just that much better about the state of things. So you've been doing the same thing every day for years, so what? There are moments, things that make a spike in the parabolic arc of your life.
Floating faces molting in the vacuous space of dark matter, being made on the other side of the mirror, the side you're not supposed to see. Blacked-out rooms full of noise, bodies applauding other bodies. A shifty ground beneath your feet slides you into an anechoic chamber where it's you alone, with some soothing stranger who takes good care, then pushes you into an awkward situation, listening to some fool tell you exactly what they think, and it's so ridiculous. Then you fall into bed at night, replaying all the events of the day, trying to add them up or block them out, to make them work for you, so tomorrow, you can keep going intact as your third (or fourth) I. Cha is impressed by the alienated moments, dwells on the tertiary aspect of supposed dualities.
The effect of her careful work is not limited to the experience of its presence inside the gallery, but brings to light exactly what's not there.
“Third I”
February 28th to March 28th, 2009
Opening reception Friday, March 28th 6-8 PM
It could be true that we're composites of things outside of us. Placing, peeling, replicating, repeating, these actions imposed on Xavier Cha's subjects imply that one is not enough. She suggests through photographs, video, and performers that we can't really do this on our own, and if we can't find who it is we really are we may as well try to make another version. It is through repeated failure that we begin to constitute ourselves.
You're watching TV, or walking down the street and pass by shop windows with their sun-bleached posters. You see new hand cream, hair extensions, all those products and subtle alterations that could bolster your sense of contentment, coax you along on your walk from house, to subway, to work feeling just that much better about the state of things. So you've been doing the same thing every day for years, so what? There are moments, things that make a spike in the parabolic arc of your life.
Floating faces molting in the vacuous space of dark matter, being made on the other side of the mirror, the side you're not supposed to see. Blacked-out rooms full of noise, bodies applauding other bodies. A shifty ground beneath your feet slides you into an anechoic chamber where it's you alone, with some soothing stranger who takes good care, then pushes you into an awkward situation, listening to some fool tell you exactly what they think, and it's so ridiculous. Then you fall into bed at night, replaying all the events of the day, trying to add them up or block them out, to make them work for you, so tomorrow, you can keep going intact as your third (or fourth) I. Cha is impressed by the alienated moments, dwells on the tertiary aspect of supposed dualities.
The effect of her careful work is not limited to the experience of its presence inside the gallery, but brings to light exactly what's not there.