Fri 3/17 @ 5:30-10PM
The Sculpture Center opens two new shows this Friday with a reception/art party that will keep raging until 10pm. The sedate part — the artist talks — happen from 6:30-8pm. After that it’s karoke until 10!
The two shows were conceived and executed by Cleveland artist Cameron Granger and Pittsburgh’s Erin Mallea, both involving a complicated web of conceptual bases.
Granger’s Dream Drop Distance ties directly into the karaoke element of the opening reception. His installation features two custom karaoke booths and playlists that ask visitors to engage in duets. “Reworked audio & visual renditions of classic karaoke tracks ask participants to embody histories and lifeworlds outside of their own,” says his artist statement. “Finally, the centerpiece science fiction film Before I Let Go ponders the possibilities of life in the ruins of anti-black environmental extraction through the framework of a pseudo-documentary following a community’s recovery efforts 5 years after an attack from giant monsters.”
Mallea’s Permissible Dose “investigates visual, auditory, and olfactory experiences of living in proximity to industrial pollution. The exhibition combines video, sculpture and custom fragrances designed to mimic Pittsburgh industrial smells. Live air-quality data from Pittsburgh, the artist’s home as well as one of the most polluted regions in the U.S., will control the intermittent release of scents diffused throughout the gallery.”
To create the exhibit, Mallea engaged with environmental activists to monitor industrial sites with a video called Obscuring Power following their work. “Together, the video and installation are a meditation on contemporary compulsory risk and concealed responsibility,” she says.
Both shows will be on view through Saturday April 29.