SPACE-DOMESTIC
CURATOR'S STATEMENT

People go to their offices downtown, but at night, slink to their suburban
homes. People still like to shop at Macy's and fancy little boutiques, but
big box stores stretch their sprawling tendrils like kudzu and dominate the
American landscape with their strip-mall sameness. The concept of
"Suburbia"is a big metaphor for this show. I find many parallel
undercurrents to the suburbanization of America in contemporary art. The
suburbs are not necessarily a mediocre cultural place, they remain a place
where people are led when they follow their dreams. I find it very relevant
to draw connecting lines between the idea of "suburbia" and the world of
contemporary art. We are all fascinated by high art products that are so
sleek and shiny that no trace of the human hand can be detected. But after
the initial impression subsides, you feel that you have lost something. The
cold, machined surface of a pristine art object, like the imposing facade of
megalomaniacal McMansion, loses all sense of humanity. By focusing on a
single aspect of perfection, rejecting all that does not conform to that
ideal, everything else that is good is left out. Just as building gated
castles in neighborhoods kills a sense of community, the removal of the
artist‚s hand tends to kill the soul of a painting. Imperfections and quirks
are just as important to towns as they are to works of art.

What is Technology? Artists that manipulate photos to make them look like
painting is now child's play, thanks to Photoshop. Even elementary school
kids can do that now. How about the Internet? For tens of thousands of
years, humanity thrived without cell phones or the internet, yet these
wonders have suddenly become the most important things in the world for many
people. Online you can find your old friends or handsome handbags by simply
Googling their names. These technologies are causing a mingling of personal
and public zones. This is a crucial and relevant issue for myself as an
artist as well as for my role in this exhibition as guest curator. I have
scrambled together some artists who are interested in this subject and deal
with it in their work. Technology is a stylistic tool for some of the
artists in this show. Technology has been toned down in „Space Domestic‰, it
is ambiguous, almost as if it is fading out of memory or teasing with your
visual sense. The artists use source materials such as old photos, comics,
advertisement, internet, suburban architecture and patterns from design
goods. They investigate the notion of space as an interesting relationship
between humans and technology, person and public zones, narrative and
abstractions, negotiating the line between fantasy and reality.
It will be interesting to see how the artists‚ work relate to one another
in this show. While you are looking at Gianna‚s works you will actually see
her sense of reversed space in Hildegard‚s inside out objects that they look
as if they are growing in the space, such as the corner of a kitchen or the
attic. You can see the artist psychological state in Andy Moon Wilson‚s
tight office-like drawing installation and make the virtual relation to Amze
Emmons‚ depiction of public space, or Lily Cox Richard‚s monitor drawings on
Tyvek. Warren and Isabel make beautiful and minimal style of nostalgic
suburban landscapes, suggesting loss of memory and old technology. The most
common technical point of these artists is that they all revel in their
hands. It is refreshing to see how the artist‚s hand is involved and
honestly revealed on the surface of canvas and paper, while so many
contemporary artists are eager to make cold and sleek hand removed works
nowadays.

Jiha Moon