First Year Exhibition at Gallery D – Object Redux : Prototypes as Palimpsets
Ginevra Sappino
“Game of life” is a piece that reflects my feelings on luck and chance, and how these play a major role in our lives. While it might seem terrifying to release control and accept that certain things are up to fortune, I think such unpredictability is beautiful and coats life in the curiosity and mystery it deserves. I decided to construct a functioning old-fashioned scale along with a small wire dice, which I would place on one of the plates in order to tip the scale in that direction. The scientific plate instead is a playful text written in the voice of an art historian in the foreseeable future, writing about this sculpture, which has hypothetically just been retrieved in an ancient artistsâ studio in Paris.
Ella Springer
I wanted to combine the historic purpose of vases used to depict stories, the naturalistic themes of the original vase, and the tones of mass-production from the exhibit. Together they create a story about our current battle with climate change, and how we contribute to the problem with our need for consumption of objects everyday. The climbing of dry leaves up the vase suggests a feeling of unstoppable nature. It also references the desire of consumers today wanting more ânaturalâ looking items, influenced by a trendy revival of environmentalism. The green movement within art and design is becoming a return to impressionism with its depiction of pure nature, something we are on the verge of losing.
Also a little bit about the original vase:
Vase, by Edmond Lachenal, is displayed with the Monoprix collection at Musee des Arts Decoratifs. The exhibit has themes of ready-made objects that evoke the world of mass distribution. This gives a whole new tone to the vase. It asks the viewer to engage with the vase as a product to be consumed. The vase seems out of place on a stage of eclectic objects for everyday life. It stands out and challenges the purpose of a vase in mass production use vs. art.
Elina Vildere
“Mirrow” (materials: clay, gouache, tooth picks)
Mirrow confronts the idea that the act of mirroring allows oneself to access the indirect and ambiguous self who is otherwise beyond one’s self-conscious reach. The 3 mirrors of the original piece are replaced by a series of photographs that introduces a storyline of a crime story. What once was a mirror, and thus reflected the world as it is, has been transformed into a window that arrays a series of ambiguous images and leaves one in perplexity of what has happened and what is the story that the images try to convey?
Atiria Sandhu
As I sat there, sketching the museum object, I was thinking of the story of sirens through my lens of modern feminism and thought it was quite odd how even as a mythological story, the sirens who were never to be viewed in a sexual light, evolved to be these temptresses that men must beware of. I see it as an attempt to villainize women and use their sexualitty and beauty as a threat. Therefore, I created a âwantedâ poster of a siren, as if she were a criminal on the loose. Women are often made to feel as if they cannot express themselves as anything outside societyâs idealized version of them, is considered wrong and must be changed. Taking note of the sirens’ very realistic body, I developed the idea of having the description of the ‘criminal’ be sarcastic. The juxtaposition of the very normal description and image of the siren with the alarm of the poster, urging the viewer to beware, highlights how senseless and absurd societyâs logic can be with what is acceptable for women, which is also my aim for this project. When creating the poster, I wanted the posture and looks of the siren to be very ânormalâ, with an average weight, imperfections etc. I wanted to remove her from this villain standpoint and stray away from the depictions of sirens with fangs, claws and other monstrous features. I chose colors to be very stereotypically feminine as well as I wanted to connect back to my theme of taking back the power of such stereotypes.