Megan Plunkett at F

(link)

The anxiety of observing, the anxiety of art, the anxiety of being unable to produce "meaning." Feeling others eyes at "not getting it," a social panopticon appears and hex at it: "surely this is a joke."

Is this not haunting? A third presence?

"Haunting" and the paranormal share with art the expectation of a ghostly other. A presence that flits recognition and which we actively search. For art this is MEANING, the ghost we invented that now haunts all artwork. An expectation that preterrorizes the artwork. Mike Kelley inferred as much with his ectoplasms. And stating: ‘Occult rituals interest me because they are akin to art-making.’ Because for paranormal and art both begin with search.

Caroline Mesquita at Blaffer Art Museum & Soshiro Matsubara at Bel Ami, Los Angeles

(Mesquita, Matsubara)

Today two theatrical sculpture exhibitions, itself remarkable, but further both detail two stories of women accosted by objects. We need a Freudian for what's in the air. Dreams and desire and uncanny dolls, in our white theaters, skulls projected. We need a doctor, and not just one who plays one on this screen. 

Paul Lee at David Shelton

(link)

Composition is the stirred pot activating subterranean content. The dead drum highlights how far we've left the possibility of something, anything. Because nothing has become content.


see too: Paul Lee at Maccarone, Paul Lee at Karma