Inter/Exist: two years in Jackson Heights
May 18th – 21st, 2017
Gallery Hours: Noon – 6pm
Opening Reception
Thursday May 18, 6pm – 9pm
inter-esse-exsit 交互存在
inter · esse-inter · est 兴趣
interest in the plural self 对复数的自我的兴趣
Entering the exhibition, the viewer encounters an entrance into a second-floor video store on Roosevelt avenue. This is followed by images of multicultural storefronts. The main exhibition includes 5 large paintings in different media–canvas, wood board, fabric–showing the faces of 5 foreign born American subjects facing forward, with video of their back and audio of them speaking encountered at the rear of the paintings.
“People are composites of everything that they see, hear, and feel; they are the sum of their environment. 2 years ago, I moved from New York’s Lower East Side to Jackson’s Heights in Queens. Jackson Heights is missing Manhattan’s $ 12 cocktails or Thursday night gallery openings, but it is the real secne, with music on the street, children dancing to Ranchera at midnight, the exchange of ideas and life that arises organically from the intermixing of people and cultures. One of its 146 languages floats by you as you walk down the street. Asha Bosle mixes with Alejo Duran and then Gloria Gainer. Transgendered Columbians passing out free condoms alongside gay Muslims, their base a Jewish Community Center.
It is not precisely the New York City that has dissipated with time. But that New York City was never precise. And that was the whole point of New York City. It was a feeling, a feeling of life and possibility. That feeling that once permeated the city has now been castaway to a few small islands, islands of people exiled by their homeland into a dirty, loud, free, and uninhibited simulacrum of their homeland.
Why do you leave home to go home? What is the search for? Why here? Who is American, who is the alien? Can we really love each other?”
–Gezi Cao
about the artist:https://www.fluxfactory.org/fluxers/gezi-cao/
展览由通向画廊的长廊开始,展示关于皇后区杰克逊高地的摄影作品。主展区面向观众展示5张大型绘画,从天花板垂下,分别为5组模特的面部人像,画在不同材质上:画布、集装箱木板、印度布料。5位模特均为海外出生的美国人,他/她/它们之间有中国穆斯林, 非裔美国人,印度投资商人,塞尔维亚移民……5张人像的背后,是关于5位模特的视频录像。艺术家与模特对话,同时拍摄模特的背部,记录其叙述过程中的细微变化。
观众从所站立之处无法看见讲述者的脸,正如瓦尔特•本雅明所描述:“他的脸转向过去。风暴势不可挡地把他推向他背对着的未来,而他面前的废墟则持 续向天空堆聚。”
《历史哲学论文集》,收录于《灵光》,1969.p257-8.
“人是其环境的总和。 2年前,我从纽约下东区搬到皇后区的杰克逊高地。杰克逊高地没有曼哈顿12美元一杯 的鸡尾酒,也没有每周四晚上的画廊开幕,却有真正的、也是最后的纽约精神—多元文 化的共存。 杰克逊高地是全世界文化最集中的地区,这里的街头说146种语言,午夜时分,小孩子跳 着Ranchera舞蹈彻夜不眠,一墙之隔的印度家庭紧闭门窗,窗缝里却飘出混着咖喱香 气的古老拉格旋律。地铁轰鸣的罗斯福大道上藏着中国妓女与墨西哥毒贩,哥伦比亚变 性者站在穆斯林同性恋酒吧门口向行人发放安全套,几十米之外,便是犹太社区中心。 皇后区不是曼哈顿,却支持着“纽约”这个模糊的精神体。来自四海的人被故土所放逐, 落脚于此肮脏、喧闹、自由的土地,共同组成世界的中心。 在此居住的2年,我一直在问: 为何背离家园前往他乡?所寻的是什么?为何是此地?世界公民是否成立?谁是美国人, 谁又是外国人?在最后的最后,我们能否相亲相爱。”
—曹鸽子
关于艺术家:https://www.fluxfactory.org/fluxers/gezi-cao/