Company Gallery: Carnage Composition and the The Massive Disposal of Experience
PHOTOGRAPHY Justin Mariano
WORDS Company Gallery
Two exhibitions in one, the Company Gallery presents 'The Massive Disposal of Experience' by the Women's History Museum, and 'Carnage Composition' by Raúl de Nieves. The Women’s History Museum explores themes of consumerism, the evolving modes of shopping, and the consciousness of commerce in a two-channel film titled, 'The Massive Disposal of Experience'. The film’s narrative is centered around its main character Experience, a vintage clothing reseller in a not so far off future. We follow Experience to New York City where mysteries occur that parallel to metaphors in the sphere of accessibility and disposal of clothing. It seems as if in this virtual reality, Experience’s lifetime(s) of shopping is coming back to haunt her in a spectacle created by humanity’s late capitalist ills.
The film is accompanied by an immersive installation featuring costumes worn by Experience that hang on air-brushed animalistic mannequins. There is a boa made up of hangers and vintage clothing tags, a dramatic ball gown composed of novelty “shopping” related t-shirts. The room is filled with shopping bags and chairs that look like stacks of magazines, setting a scene ecovative of the abandoned retail spaces and mall in the film.
De Nieves' exhibition, is explained by a poetic 4 parts. Grave Robber Manifestation: it begins with an ending. Misfortune was the genesis for the central sculpture in this exhibition. A pile of fear and failure and a broken heart kindled the question of what to do with the remains. Rather than yield to fate, Raúl leaned into the symbolic moment and resurrected the misfortune. Little beads and bits of shitty thrift store sequins shine with renewed secrecy. The sculpture's dressed in elevated death drag.
Universal Earthly Delights: its changing room is a series of wardrobe doors entitled “The Book of Hours”. On their insides, a menagerie of leering figures take turns dancing with death. He has painted a portal that thrums with the white noise of the great void. It’s a passageway to the moon.
Duplicate Magic: a fabulous little astronaut named Timothy stands outside these doors and he’s just a kid, but naiveté has prepared him for everything. In the adjacent room, an old witch-doctor named Lord gazes on without judgment, but without empathy, also an allegory of creative exploration.
11th Hour Gratitude Flies: 1100 flies - are landing on everything. I read that blowflies lay living larvae in rotting bodies. They celebrate life by helping things die.
