Hana Miletić at Basement Roma

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Knitting being an embodiment of care. (Because knitting is so laboriously outmoded it can only be care, i.e. not capitalism, more love hours than can ever be repaid, etc. Knitting is the province of excess time, and attention, which translates to -anticapitalist- care) And so, now using knitting as a medium representing other forms of care/repair. Like hand grinding paint to depict a pencil sketch or whatever. A sort of redundancy, or analogy? Homology? Tautology? The point is there is effort-over-time in reproducing others attempts at care. Effort invokes effort. (The stitch marks time.)

"Why does "stitching" make a comeback? Impressionism's strokes showcasing its painterly labor. It had been that eventually genius embedded itself into the canvas, itself signifying "art," and blankness was fine. Does canvas no longer back painting's monetary value a priori? Do we need proof of work? Like the ornately etched lines of paper currency, making the labor of reproduction more expensive than the bill itself - proof of scarcity, value. Time equates to money. But now we have copy machines, CNC routers, childlabor and interns. Perhaps proof of work is just nostalgia for when there was infinite time, for when there was time. "

This separation of our social relations we've so completely assimilated that labor itself returns as a literal fetishism, stitches mark this labor, look compelling, can be brought out onto white walls, as aura, as artwork. Every cheap objects is an equal tapestry. The stitches in time are smoother, hidden. Hold up your child's plastic toy and feel another at its end.

see too: 

Stitching: Ryo Kinoshita at Fons Welters, Diedrick Brackens at Various Small Fires, Helen Mirra at Nordenhake, Brendan Fowler at Mathew, Brendan Fowler at Richard Telles

Care: Carolyn Lazard at Essex Street, Park McArthur at Chisenhale, Susan Cianciolo at Modern Art, B. Wurtz at Metro Pictures

Augustas Serapinas at Basement Roma

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The gallery's neighbor is pet groomer. And neighbors and previous tenants are sorta what Serapinas seems into, using neighbors. Past instances include a locksmith's keys melted into sauna buckets and curtain rings, as well as a neighbor's pen getting into into some bread. In behaved conceptual art fashion is engorges its signifiers with a vitality, allowing the life of writers and press to extrapolate until a blue that's on brand. But this exhibition is much funnier as a literal attempt at represenatational act, attempting to see through walls and well envision the neighbor that everyone writing think-pieces about how we are so disconnected from. A gallery exists next to a pet groomer. Wipe enough fat on the walls and eventually they becomes transparent. People like to see their neighbors in themselves.