The View from Here
Curated by Sarah Fritchey
March 20—June 15, 2020
Eben Kling, Chicken and Cheese, 2015. Cardboard, bed sheet, corn starch, crayola model magic, Dimensions variable.
March 19, 2020: Yesterday I went to Lowes to purchase a radon test, a caulking gun and a pair of goggles. The radon test is for my basement, we’re hoping we can exercise downstairs while gyms are closed. The caulking gun is for my shower, we have a 2-year leak that gets worse with time. The goggles are for my partner, who will wear them at the hospital if they run out of face shields. Life goes on, somewhere between the mundane and the all too real, and in our efforts to manage Covid-19, much of it moves online.
In many ways, our new digital existence is not novel. In the arts, we regularly communicate online, producing eye-popping images and quirky videos that make our exhibitions and programs available virtually. So it is with everyday cadence that I curate this show, featuring a yet to be determined number of artworks, for a yet to be determined period of time, by artists who contemplate the insularities of the human condition—head(iness), shoulders, knees and toes.
Online, this will look like any group show, supplemented by bite sized interviews with each artist. Apropos to the title, the interviews will start off with the question, In this moment, what does the view from here look like for you? leaving the door open for personal circumstance and reflection to drive the conversations.
Physically, the exhibition will be viewable from the street, revealing qualities undetectable online–imperfect fits, extreme partial viewings and DIY fixes. Removing lipstick from the pig, showing the errors, I invite us all to find new personal freedoms in this moment, where uncertainty is the new norm, and striving towards perfection will only require update after update.
So let’s be unusually kind to ourselves, and to others, acknowledging the slack, and own up to the fact that we really only ever get a partial view of anything anyway, especially on days when so many of us are going to work without pants on. Be safe, be well, in solidarity, Sarah
Featured Artists Include: Jacob Broussard, Dymin Ellis, Kathryn Frund, Alex Jackson, Eben Kling & Aude Jomini, Abbie Kundishora, Tom Reilly, Felandus Thames and Lilly Zuckerman.
This exhibition is mounted in solidarity with Windowed Worlds, a concurrent Town Green District initiative that invites artists to transform New Haven’s empty storefronts into awe-inspiring visions.
Artist Interviews:
The View from Here: Tom Reilly
Artspace curator Sarah Fritchey interviews artist Tom Reilly about the artist’s work in the current Artspace exhibition, “The View from Here.”
“The View from Here” is an exhibition taking place in Spring 2020 in the Artspace windows and on our website as the COVID-19 pandemic prevents us from opening to the public. Learn more here.