Arts & Culture Magazine - March/April 2008 - (Page 22) Exhibitions : : By Tobey Albright Art Center Gallery o MISSIle PIllow sweet (american) dreams i know nothing .2007. goodwill t-shirts, concrete base. each one is approx. 5’ tall Kim Litch installation “I Know Nothing” in the Center Gallery March 4 - April 26, 2008 : : Opening Reception March 13 day lives, but is rather something set apart in order to reflect history’s own impact on our present and future. Kim Litch’s exhibition at Art Center Sarasota, and her latest body of work, “I know nothing,” fosters a space for socio-political contemplation about humanity’s primary source of conflict and misunderstanding: namely, our bodies. Similar to the way we first experience another body, Litch wants us to experience her work through a formal encounter that develops into a tactile or visceral experience. She uses materials such as found clothing or latex in order to reorient our relationship with the power dynamics of gender. Litch states: “My installations are heavily rooted in Surrealism and I refer to them as “Surreal Environments” because when I work to create an installation, I work to create an environment.” She continues, “I want people to walk into a space and feel as if they are in a dream, or another world.” Her sentiment is further realized beyond the work’s physical properties. It penetrates the realm of conceptualism with a manifesto that outlines its agenda to use language. In a statement for her work, Litch explains, “‘I know nothing’ is a body of work that is rooted historically by the American Know-Nothing Party and revolves around the thematic issue of this exaggerated patriotic and ‘know-nothing’ attitude that has become endemic in America.” In addition to exhibiting several large anthropomorphic sculptures through installation, Litch will exhibit several drawings that incorporate writing. The drawings reveal the underpinnings of her process by offeroffer ing viewers another avenue of focus while they experience her primary body of work. The use of repetition, not only in her writing but also in her forms, simultaneously supports her somewhat political agenda while promoting the spin-off of multiple meanings. While many artists today still work fervently to fight age-old battles for unity and equality, others hope to reveal the trappings of our collective ideals by ushering in a celebration of ambiguity. Kim Litch’s work inhabits a strange “non place” where we get to experience one another with both our eyes and our hands, and this time, touching in public is good. ur first experiences inside museums—the contemporary cathedrals of culture—informs our relationship to art and objects for the rest of our lives. The simultaneous experience of intimacy and distance encourages societal reverence in this space that exists for collecting and caring for objects of scientific, artistic, or historical importance. A museum’s denial of physical contact with works of art (NO TOUCHING!) preserves the object’s integrity and clears conceptual space for understanding that historical greatness isn’t something we know in our every- 22 : : arts and culture magazine artcentersarasota.org www.artsandculturemag.com http://www.artsandculturemag.com http://www.artsarasota.org/
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