How Fast Your World Is Changing
Curatorial

"This international group offer works with a profound interest in the viewer as participant, as well as the concept of reciprocation. These six artists each have a practice invested in connecting with others - for art and life to intersect, inclusive of one another. If the title of the exhibition, How Fast Your World Is Changing, alludes to the idea of change within the boundaries of the gallery (some of the pieces will evolve), it also reflects on our general sense of reality.

On a collective level, things shift and grow around us, the days tick on, and we are witness to the ever revolving door. We live with change, whether we’re prepared for it, accept or resist it. What once seemed to make sense will often become less obvious as we grow older. Items of value lose their significance; resources that seemed useless become precious. Ideas continue to form, and the artists stay the course to create. Their tenacity alerts us, it moves us; it leaves us thinking, questioning our own reality as we all carry on. This is their gift to us."

Harrell Fletcher, Christine Hill, Hope Hilton, Jessica James Lansdon, Jennifer Delos Reyes, Markuz Wernli-Saito

"Marc and Brian [from Bad At Sports] head down to Ampersand International Arts to check out “How Fast is your World Changing”. They talk with curator/artist Lori Gordon as well as participating artists Hope Hilton and Markuz Wernli-Saito about lying to curators and the strange effects of silence." Listen to podcast here.

Photo credit: Bruno Mauro

Photo credit: Bruno Mauro

Photo credit: Markuz Wernli-Saito

Photo credit: Jennifer Delos Reyes

Change It Up
by James Servin

What, in this life, is ever static? Even stones have molecules vibrating at a low (extremely low) rate. In past decades, the world may have been a bit more like those stones. Now, it’s a buzzing bee. We live in an age which has access to more information than any other preceding it. The human body, its nervous system, has never had to deal with processing so much data. We are aware of change closer to its happening, and maybe because of this, change is speeding up. Through televisions, cell phones, Blackberries, camcorders, iPhones, digital cameras, the world is speaking to itself like never before, documenting itself, inspiring further adjustments and shifts, pushing forward, backward and sideways with each new bit of knowledge. Information is cause, change effect, and vice versa. Concurrently, a backdrop to this informational quickening, is a planet in upheaval, torn apart by earthquakes, hurricanes, floods. And then there’s the election…

This is the era of the shifting sands, the ground continually moving underneath our feet. It’s a time that is both exhilarating and terrifying, promising and frustrating. Commenting upon, and in some cases replicating the dynamic essence of our lives today,the artists chosen by Lori Gordon do so with wit, compassion, insight, attitude and inventiveness, furthering Gordon’s ongoing creation of a leap-of-faith-taking, belief-challenging artistic and curatorial vision she has designated “social sculpture.” And so, in his photo-documentation project “Shadow Followers”, Markuz Wernli Saito enlisted fifteen local people in Bao Loc Vietnam to document everyday things they found important, Monday through Saturday for one month (amassing 1200 prints, edited to 72). Gallery goers, in turn, are enlisted in the respectful act of mailing the negatives back to the picture-takers. In her installation titled “long shadow (tail)” Jessica James Lansdon invites visitors to cut loose a collection of objects attached to the wall by strings. In her artist’s statement, she ponders the role of art in its physical form, and how that relates to our material-based culture. She writes: “…the holidays can get you thinking about the role of gift giving in a materially glutted culture, like what do you get the person who has everything, when everyone has everything similarly problems around objects are central to the art these
days- how can we still make things?”

Some artists invoke the beauty of a direct human connection. In “Walk With Me: 30 Days of San Francisco”, Hope Hilton explores the fourth most populous city in California,taking participants on a variety of silent walking excursions, with participants contributing to the design of the project in the form of directions, suggestions, and documentation in words, objects and sounds. Inspired by the funeral of a friend’s grandmother during which the bereaved was serenaded her favorite song by friends and family, Jennifer Delos Reyes, in “Choral Society (for Lori Gordon)” pays tribute to her friend and this show’s curator. A group of Lori Gordon’s friends singing John Lennon’s “Instant Karma” at the show’s opening will be documented on film and play in a loop, the virtual replacing the physical, sending the love out for the duration of the show. Self-described “hobby archivist and librarian” Christine Hill will be generating a series of posters from her Berlin-based studio, Volksboutique, in a long-term project which comments upon both the vacuity and the comfort derived from a linguistic cultural staple that she drolly refers to as “The Uplifting Quotation.” Harrell Fletcher captures the stirring quality of this election’s unfolding by simply broadcasting a daily installment of “Democracy Now”, a news program hosted by Amy Goodman. This mirrors the change-related topic that’s at the forefront of everyone’s minds, and provides the handy public service of an always-welcome news update.

The theme of the show is the theme of life: change. Lori Gordon says she came upon the idea for it while reading Carl Sagan’s Contact, being drawn in particular to this quote in the book: “Considering how fast your world is changing, it’s amazing you haven’t blown yourselves to bits by now. That’s why we don’t want to write you off just yet. You humans have a certain talent for adaptability—at least in the short term.” What will act as a cohesive element in the show is the shifting of some of the art in stages throughout the exhibition, bringing a new level of interest to the observer. And so, one visit to this show will not be enough. Gallery goers may have to adjust their usual habit of seeing, absorbing, analyzing and moving on and revise this pattern, incorporating a return trip into their schedules return to see what has happened after some artists have pressed the “refresh” button.

James Servin began his career in New York in 1986 with an entry-level job at GQ. After contributing articles in his second year at the magazine, he launched a successful freelance writing career, placing feature articles in a variety of publications, including British Vogue, Allure, Elle, Metropolitan Home, Details, Organic Style and Natural Health. He has written for many sections of The New York Times, including The New York Times Magazine, the “Page Six Magazine” and “Styles of the Times” sections. He was a contributing editor at Harper’s Bazaar for three years and was executive editor at Nylon magazine. He currently writes for Page Six Magazine and Black Book, among other publications.