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Songs of the Self: Slightly Unbalanced
Museum London * 6 December, 2008 - 22 February, 2009
Organized and cu rated by Independent Curators International
Upon entering the expansive second floor of Museum London, I am confronted by an audible host of stifled cries and one brazen proclamation of the self - "I Sean Landers exist ... I have great love for you." The exhibition space contains a mix of mediums from painting and video, to sculpture and installation. Immediately to the left of the entrance sits the compulsive, diaristic itinerary of Dánica Phelps's Artist Collector Curator Spy, a document of the banality of the everyday, with entries ranging from "CRAMPS" to "watching X-Files." Photographed panels of tattered bears and ambiguous insects from Mike Kelley's Ahh . . . Youth! are visible beyond a dividing wall - a teenage photograph of the artist, acne and all, rests in fitting proximity on the fifth of eight panels, between a pink bunny rabbit and an asexual, homemade plush toy. At eye level to the right, David Shrigley's photographed fragment of a studio space sports the inscription "ANTI-DEPRESSANTS" on a large white bucket, reinforcing the stereotypical perception of the tragic artist figure. Immersed in this climate of emotional fragility, it seems rather fitting and ironic that the watchful eye of a security guard looms behind.
Slightly Unbalanced explores neurosis and other psychological states of being. Splintered into four categories - Progenitors, Performance Video, Inner Monologues, and The House as Metaphor for the Mind - the artists confront, challenge and articulate the nuances of emotional disorder(s) through autobiographical, confessional and diaristic modes of communication. Besides inflating the common presumption of the artist as someone who compromises psychological stability for their work, the artists in this exhibition draw attention to the vulnerability of the artist's psyche and neurotic tendencies that are so readily assumed to accompany artistic production and creativity.1
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