A tree stump greets the visitors to Interdependence, the new exhibition in Cummings. An electric light lit by a coiled orange extension chord rests on it. On one side stands a mannequin wearing an inflated turquoise hood. The sound of the machine inflating the hood accompanies visitors’ exploration of the rest of the gallery, reinforcing a question that this exhibition raises: how do we grapple with the connections and contradictions that arise when humans, nature, society, and objects come together? How do we even survive these connections and contributions?
The work on display, curated by Mary Tinti, is by two artists, Kate Gilbert ‘96 and Abigail Anne Newbold, who had never shown together before. And so the conversation this past Wednesday among the three women turned to a discussion of the role of the curator. As a curator, “you’re a cheerleader, you’re a problem-solver,” Gilbert said. By “asking a lot of questions,” Tinti continued, she offered an outside perspective, calling attention to similarities and differences between works.
The show was originally going to be what Newbold termed “correspondence art work,” in which the artists would actually share and trade materials. But that didn’t pan out, and instead “the collaboration [became] … the sharing of ideas,” Tinti said. Engaging with larger ideas is exactly the work that this art does so provocatively.
The exhibition came to life as an interdependent process, but interdependence is also apparent in the art itself. Using humor and discussing desire, Gilbert’s work “explores the relational hierarchies of objects and people … to question objects of comfort, the retail systems they operate in, our consumptive behaviors and our collective fears.” Newbold has strikingly similar concerns. “Utilizing a domestic-based visual language” in her art and speaking in terms of “resources,” she, too, explores economies and people’s relationships to them. Newbold probes “the relationship of economy to freedom and [speculates] how individuals transcend predominant economic expectations through the perpetuation of making skills.” As Tinti put it, the show is about “fashion and style, but also survival.”
“Survival,” Newbold said, is “the ability to survive on your own until your community can rescue you.” But human connection doesn’t occur well when survival is prioritized above all else. “Humanity is actually about everyone else around you,” Newbold said. Both she and Gilbert are anxious about losing that connection. Mentioning Sherry Turkel’s book Alone Together, Gilbert said, “My anxiety comes from the fact that I think our communities are breaking down really badly.
Though this is perhaps less immediately obvious than the tree stump occupying the center of the gallery, another notable part of the exhibition is that nothing is labeled with a title and artist. The artists decided to “just let the work do its own talking,” Newbold said. In the context of this particular exhibition, it does more specific work than that. It does ask, as Newbold put it, “What is this saying by putting one thing here next to this other thing?” But such questions about juxtaposition are always asked of exhibitions. Without labels in this exhibition, each work is ever so slightly less demarcated from the others. Piling the artists’ work together in this way emphasizes that this is a cohesive, shared exhibition (although, with Gilbert’s focus on fashion and Newbold’s more on the collaging of objects, it’s still fairly easy to tell who created what).
But doing away with standard labels (the works are identified by a number, which corresponds to a title and artist on a separate list) also removes one layer of fabrication in this exhibition that is so concerned with the interplay between the natural and the manmade. Among other objects, piece two includes a pair of antlers. Antlers are found in nature. But once they are mounted on a piece of wood as part of taxidermy, they are no longer natural. Or, rather, they are no longer completely natural. They now are some combination of natural and unnatural. In piece 13, a tapestry of a garden, the viewer is on one of a fence. On the other side is a plant-covered greenery. There is again an interplay, between society (the fence) and nature, with the viewer at once protected and constrained by the fence. Piece 16 is a tent, an artificial creation the very purpose of which is to impinge upon nature. And yet, camping is often considered to be a natural activity, a way to get back to nature. A fluorescent light hiding attached to the tent disabuses viewers of this notion, however.
Through these interplays and juxtapositions, Interdependence challenges many such notions. Take a look. The exhibition is up through Oct. 16, 2015. •
