Still Wet.
June 2009: six artists execute a week-long collaborative painting at Julius Caesar, a small artist-run gallery on Chicago’s West Side.  Working in separate shifts beginning at 6am Monday morning, these six women paint all four walls and the floor of the 12 x 14’ space, in successive layers following a pattern of additive (application of pre-determined and arbitrarily-selected color,) then subtractive (white-out) and so on until the week is up.  Each ending shift activates the next with a cryptic phone call, of which the only spoken words are “Hey artist. It’s me. It’s still wet.”

These same six artists now present Thrashold, a collaboratively-curated group show of our individual works at the Art Center of Highland Park. Our statement of purpose follows:

September 2009: Share a symbolic space. This doesn’t mean agreement, or shared vision, unilateral terms or criteria. The thrash subverts the illusion of consensus and re-establishes a dynamic of conflict.

An action of revolt against myself: against me knowing something. It's a mean, scary place that propels flight, but fleeing's hard. Rather than knowing; decide not to know. There is longing along the way, to define the “I” in relationship to the “that” of painting; this hair I tear is mine. I am indecisive and my imagination is waning.  Keep looking, treading, moving, moving senselessly, and what here again is the trouble about the agon of nothing?  We know that to mean anything you have to be a little sore. Thrash and stamp feet to make a sound. This opens up other perspectives for me to see the outside associated to this flexibility. (circulation)

Therefore there can exist between us a conflictual consensus. We agree on the principles that inform the association but we disagree about the interpretation of those principles.

A group show by:
Aline Cautis
Youni Chae
Dana DeGiulio
Judith Geichman
Kaylee Rae Wyant
Molly Zuckerman-Hartung