Guest curated by Los Angeles- (formerly Seattle-) based artist Rodrigo Valenzuela, Closed Quarters brings together video works that use the mis-en-scene of domestic environments as a site of vulnerability, especially in its relationship with privacy, gentrification, and intimacy. The artists in the exhibition—Zachary Fabri, Shana Hoehn, and Kenneth Tam—contrast a hyperawareness of the transactional nature of contemporary relationships with mundane objects that mediate or interfere with these relationships.
Kenneth Tam’s video The compression is not subservient to the explosion; it gives it increased force (2011) finds the artist in his apartment in a continuous negotiation of desires with a man inside a large box. Caught in a precarious situation, Tam is forced to navigate between his role as artist and object of someone's uncomfortable desires.
Shana Hoehn’s Shudder Blade Hug (2017) depicts a precarious relationship between contemporary live/work interiors and humans through poetic and playful digital interventions. The rotating aerial view of camera and upside down views depicts a sort of normalized vertigo. Below, the main characters engage in a cuddle session in the familiar environment of modern furniture and technology products. Similarly, these characters, though vastly different in lifestyle, appear as if plucked from Apple advertisements calculated to appeal to a wide demographic.
A selection of Zachary Fabri’ s video and photography (all 2016) question the nature of viewership of intimate gestures. The camera is a passive observer of Fabri’s naked body as he stands before a window. Curtains protect him from us as viewers inside the apartment, while he remains exposed to the public outside the room.
Closed Quarters presents alternatives for how the body and ego can exist in the capital market. In various ways, the artists reflect on their own bodies or characters as commodities and how we can create spaces in which male assertion is not necessary.
Vachon Gallery Monday- Friday 8:30 AM- 4:30 PM
Fine Arts Building (FINR)
206-296-5360
Generally Open: Monday through Friday 8:30-4:30 PM
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