PAUSE :: Death's Boutique
20 Mar - 25 Apr 2010
PAUSE :: DEATH'S BOUTIQUE
March 20 - April 25. 2010
For their first collaborative exhibition, Death’s Boutique, Los Angeles-based artists Kara Tanaka and Marco Rios investigate death by delving into heavy subject matter with both humor and sincerity, with a new series of sculptures accompanied by photographs, video and printed matter. For this project, the artists journey to Sweden to investigate the origin of Promessa, the newest and most ecological burial technique and to Lithuania, the country with the world’s highest suicide rate. They explore the motivations of those who preemptively seek and plan for their own moment of expiration and those willing to conjure the magic of a well-considered ending. The project is also inspired by cinema's poet of postwar alienation, Michelangelo Antonioni, and his 1975 film The Passenger, which chronicles one man’s voyage through another’s identity. The artists’ collaboration translates key moments and issues within the film that address spirituality and melancholia. The exhibition mimics an elaborate stage set and includes source materials and ephemera that adopt unconventional materials to create hybrid sculptures that mine an intimate, personal psychology.
Death's Boutique is part of YBCA Exhibition series PAUSE :: Practice and Exchange.
Curator: Julio Cesar Morales, Adjunct Curator of Visual Arts at YBCA.
March 20 - April 25. 2010
For their first collaborative exhibition, Death’s Boutique, Los Angeles-based artists Kara Tanaka and Marco Rios investigate death by delving into heavy subject matter with both humor and sincerity, with a new series of sculptures accompanied by photographs, video and printed matter. For this project, the artists journey to Sweden to investigate the origin of Promessa, the newest and most ecological burial technique and to Lithuania, the country with the world’s highest suicide rate. They explore the motivations of those who preemptively seek and plan for their own moment of expiration and those willing to conjure the magic of a well-considered ending. The project is also inspired by cinema's poet of postwar alienation, Michelangelo Antonioni, and his 1975 film The Passenger, which chronicles one man’s voyage through another’s identity. The artists’ collaboration translates key moments and issues within the film that address spirituality and melancholia. The exhibition mimics an elaborate stage set and includes source materials and ephemera that adopt unconventional materials to create hybrid sculptures that mine an intimate, personal psychology.
Death's Boutique is part of YBCA Exhibition series PAUSE :: Practice and Exchange.
Curator: Julio Cesar Morales, Adjunct Curator of Visual Arts at YBCA.