\n<\/p>\n
\u201cHow can one give an account of an irreducible depth of sensibility except by acts that betray it?\u201d Klossowski\u2019s assertion speaks to the paradox of representation\u2014that to convey the depth of experience, we must distort it. Images cannot fully encapsulate the experiences they represent. Instead, they betray their origins\u00a0 through negotiations of material and process-based intervention. This betrayal is not a failure, but an opening\u2014a necessary fracture. In the works of Christopher Baliwas, Mark Verabioff, and Erin Calla Watson, the unstable fictions that attempt to collate or constrain our lives are pushed beyond the brink. Successive ruptures create inroads into a realm of renewed possibility.<\/p>\n Baliwas\u2019 practice examines the image\u2019s corpus by employing what he calls \u2018anti-archival\u2019 methods. Using materials such as packing tape and adhesive, he deconstructs photographic prints, pulling apart layers to create spectral transfers that are subsequently effectuated into a multi-focal archive. By deconstructing and subsequently re-stabilizing the image, his works transform photographs, like Catherine Opie\u2019s depiction of Drake and his son, into distinct, cogent forms.<\/p>\n Gramsci states, \u201cThe starting point of critical elaboration is the consciousness of what one really is, and is knowing oneself as a product of the historical process to date, which has deposited in you an infinity of traces, without leaving an inventory.\u201d1<\/sup> In many esoteric traditions, a tulpa is an autonomous, constructed thought-form, brought into existence through concentrated and consistent mental effort across a long period of time. Baliwas\u2019s use of Drake as a tulpa\u2014a palimpsest of personal, cultural, and colonial histories\u2014exemplifies the critical elaboration suggested by Gramsci. Drake, with dual roles as \u2018cultural totem figure\u2019 and \u2018disarticulated referent\u2019, exemplifies the infinity of traces, and allows us to confront the blurred boundaries between public personas, private selves, and the collective cultural imaginary. This engagement mirrors the archival process itself\u2014one that is as much about reinvention as it is about retrieval. Baliwas\u2019 exhibited works, suspended on a flagpole or elevated on a transparent shelf, require viewers to shift perspectives, and ask us what we pay\u2014spatially, temporally, or emotionally\u2014in order to \u201csee\u201d. How often are these acts of so-called seeing merely conjectural interactions with unstable, imperfect captures? How much do we actually want to know?<\/p>\n Verabioff\u2019s exhibiting work PUBLIC RELATIONS | SECRET SERVICE<\/em> (2024), a diptych of two triangle-shaped canvases is composed of materials such as page tears, acrylic, canvas, rubberized undercoating, spray paint, and aluminum tape. The top triangle features a photograph of synth musician Gregory Cameron, taken by the artist in 1982 during his time at the Nova Scotia College of Art and Design. The bottom triangle incorporates a decoupage of another photograph from the same period, sourced from Verabioff\u2019s self-published 2022 zine, BOOFMAGA<\/em>. This amalgamation of imagery and materials underscores Verabioff\u2019s layered approach to visual storytelling and language-games. The extenuating elements\u2014such as a long, pooling rubber rope emanating from the composition\u2014introduce both humor and discomfort, while amplifying the tactile immediacy of the work. The triangular form, with its connotations of hierarchy and directional movement, becomes a site of visual tension where beginnings and endings collapse into circuitous gestures. Calla Watson\u2019s 2019 wall-based tetraptych, Spiritual America<\/em>, confines Hugh Hefner\u2019s original 1962 text The Playboy Philosophy<\/em> underneath printed images sourced from Garry Gross\u2019s 2013 Beautiful Old Dogs<\/em>. The work\u2019s title alludes to the infamous photograph of a nude, prepubescent Brooke Shields taken by Garry Gross in 1975, which was later appropriated by Richard Prince in 1983. Watson\u2019s use of Gross\u2019s imagery\u2014this time of elderly dogs\u2014creates an uneasy juxtaposition that interrogates how aesthetics of innocence, exploitation, and sentimentality are mediated through culture. By placing these frames within a context that nods to commercial consumerism and gendered notions of decoration, Watson critiques the commodification of identity and its intersections with patriarchal and capitalist structures.<\/p>\n The front chambers of the plexiglass boxes are filled with oil and glitter, allowing a double-utility as working snow globes, and alluding to commercially available snowglobe picture frames. When shaken, the glitter momentarily obscures the layers beneath, introducing a shimmering veil that disrupts direct perception. The upright orientation of the tetraptych echoes the verticality Nietzsche and Klossowski associate with human meaning-making, while the physical act of shaking the boxes\u2014a disruption of this upright state\u2014produces provisional, apprehensive chaos. As the glitter gradually settles, the work stages a metaphorical process of reinterpretation through settling the unsettled. The suturing of Hefner\u2019s philosophy and Gross\u2019s images introduces complex cultural codes of exploitation and a dissonant nostalgia. Nietzsche\u2019s insight into the falsification inherent in consciousness\u2014its tendency to impose its own criteria for meaning\u2014resonates as the viewer\u2019s perception shifts between text, image, and snow globe.<\/p>\n Encountering these works together, one must make an inventory for what is seen and what remains unseen. As a Drake IG caption implores, \u201cWhat is most important for you right now is to connect to your own inner light.\u201d at Ehrlich Steinberg, Los <\/a>Angeles<\/a> \u201cHow can one give an account of an irreducible depth of sensibility except by acts that betray it?\u201d\u2014Pierre Klossowski, Sade My Neighbor Klossowski\u2019s assertion speaks to the paradox of representation\u2014that to convey the depth of experience, we must distort it. Images cannot fully encapsulate the experiences they represent. Instead, they betray their origins\u00a0 through negotiations […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":52445,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[100],"tags":[14002,30658,30660,4817,30661,22730,14001,3966,13298,30659,4960],"dealstore":[],"offerexpiration":[],"class_list":["post-52444","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-art","tag-angeles","tag-baliwas","tag-calla","tag-christopher","tag-ehrlich","tag-erin","tag-los","tag-mark","tag-steinberg","tag-verabioff","tag-watson"],"yoast_head":"\n
\u2014Pierre Klossowski, Sade My Neighbor<\/em><\/p>\n
\u00a0
Verabioff\u2019s diptych triangulates history, humor, and critique, to stage what he describes as \u201cvisual combat.\u201d Rather than treating the archival as a static repository, Verabioff positions it as a contested space where acts of subsumption generate narratives that resist closure or simplistic identitarian frameworks. Through the juxtaposition of personal and cultural archives, PUBLIC RELATIONS | SECRET SERVICE<\/em> blurs the boundaries between preservation and transformation, inviting viewers to consider how memory, identity, and cultural production operate in a state of perpetual renegotiation. Verabioff\u2019s work asserts recontextualization as an act of insurgent reclamation, challenging audiences to engage with the unstable, overlapping layers of meaning embedded in his compositions.<\/p>\n
\u2014Jasminne Morataya<\/em><\/p>\n<\/p>\n
until February 8, 2025<\/p>\n