Jamie Berlant

Tuesday, October 14, 2008

The Do Right Hall

108 West Dallas
Marfa, TX

"Semblance of Control"

new works by
Jamie Berlant

Buck and Camp hosted an exhibition of my new works
in Marfa, TX at the Do Right Hall
October 10 to November 1, 2008

These are images from that exhibition.

The text panels from the exhibition are
located at the bottom of this page.

Sunday, September 28, 2008

Press:

Big Bend Sentinel:

Glasstire:

Friday, September 19, 2008

Chairs

These were old chairs that had been discarded. I disassembled them and transformed them to have human characteristics, particularly those that illustrate ailments or disabilities. I am focusing on functional chairs, with arms, seats, backs and legs, and reforming them into non-functional art.

Osteoporosis Chair: Bent Red Oak, Area Rug, 2008 ©

Conjoined Chairs: Painted Pine Chairs, Blanket, 2008 ©

(Birds Eye View)
Conjoined Chairs: Painted Pine Chairs, Blanket, 2008 ©

Poliomyelitis Chair: Oak, Carved Cedar, Leather, Linoleum, 2008 ©

Manufactured Control Devices

These works are prototypes of potentially manufactured devices to facilitate control. They are made out of surgical stainless steel and some wood. They help the user control the subject to better help them, and to show them their love, but asserting control over behavior. However, as in most relationships, with family, pets, and friends, we end up being the subject and the user at the same time.

Cat Restraint/Human Pleasure Device: Surgical Stainless Steel, 2008 ©

Toddler Control/ Rest Easy Device: Stainless Steel, Carved Cedar Wood, Brass 2008 ©

Toddler Control/ Rest Easy Device: Stainless Steel, Carved Cedar Wood, Buckle 2008 ©

Toddler Control/ Rest Easy Device: Stainless Steel, Carved Cedar Wood, Brass 2008 ©

Toddler Control/ Rest Easy Device: Stainless Steel, Carved Cedar Wood, Buckle 2008 ©

Remnants

These pieces are carved from cedar beams from a house that was torn down. They are realistic in size, and they are mounted on metal mounts. They sit on a museum-style pedestal that is a footprint of the size of the creature that would have been standing on it if it were still here.

Felis Domesticus Skull: Carved Cedar, Brass Mount, Pedestal, 2007 ©

Sunday, September 14, 2008

Supporting Texts:

REMNANTS:

There was a house. It stood tall and strong. It was built by those who envisioned themselves living and dying there. In this house they were a family and experienced everyday life. They celebrated, laughed, fought, made mistakes, found religion and lost religion in this house. The posts of this house were sunk deep into the ground to keep it from faltering. The people sunk their love wholeheartedly into it to keep it from falling apart. Yet one day, even with the most honorable intentions, the family structure fell apart.

“We’ll sell you this house as long as you don’t tear it down.”

Within six months, a bulldozer nudged the corner and the siding was torn. The bulldozer went further and the beam was exposed, as it went further, it all began pouring out. Everything was exposed, the posts, the stairs, the stares, the doors, the sadness, the cabinets, the closets. All the places where they would hide gifts from each other, all the places they would hide secrets from each other. Every part of this house had an element of stability, like a bone within an entire body. One bone, like one beam, the small parts making up the whole, uniting it into an entity.

To watch it crumble and lose control. Oh, the sense of power and authority. The pure functionality of the house has fallen and it has been disabled. All the work that it took to build it, fragmented. As if one was watching the human body fail. Every nail that held two boards together, all the years it took to develop, all the time it took to build its personality, and then to watch it die.

This one beam of the house, with the memories soaked into the pores of the wood has been separated from the whole. It is a single element that represents all that was stable, all that was loved, all that was needed. What remains is just the foundation: just the footprint. The cycle continues and there will be a new house built on the site where it once stood. It will have it’s own experiences, but I take this remnant, this memory of the house and it still stands.

____________________________________________________

THE CHAIR:

The chair has held up many people. Some would kick her legs, some would pick at her arms, and still, others just sat. If she could have loved or hated any of these people she supported, she would have gladly done so. Her arms, her legs, her back, her spine, and her joints have supported too many.

She was designed to be strong and ridged. She had been manufactured to be ideal, to look the same as others, to have the best qualities that her kind could have, but there had been a shift in the manufacturing process and she was different. Although she is unlike the others, it is not something worth being ashamed over or worrying about. This is her inexorable fate, this is what makes her, her. She allows herself to briefly focus on her condition. She finds if she doesn’t, she will lose control over her stability and despondency will defeat her. She is trapped with this undertaking. It is joined with her body, as well as her individuality, she and it are the same. She puts herself inside the anomaly and tries to become it, totally and completely. She feels her entirety become stiff and unusable, like scared tissue, everything is restricted, and nothing functions well. It is as if everything has congealed into cartilage. Then she pushes away that feeling and lets her ailment shrink back down in to what it actually is. It seems much smaller now, much more manageable.

It is something that is not standard, not manufactured, and funnily enough, non reproducible. It is hers now. She is herself and she has control over that.

__________________________________________________

MANUFACTURED CONTROL DEVICES:

There are times when I look at it, and it makes my heart melt, and there are those other times that I can’t fathom why it does what it does. It insists on having a mind of it’s own. It is so much like me.I wonder if it knows how much I love it. All I want to do is protect it, and guide it to safety, to show it the way. Does it thrive on my love, or does it just use me to get what it needs? It seems like every time I give it more attention and guidance, it moves that much further away. Like polarized magnetic forces, it and I are steadily forced apart.

There are these fantastic devices I have made for myself. I have made curtains to keep the peering eyes out, locks to keep the burglars out, perfume to provoke the senses, and even emotional cages to keep people out, and to keep them in. I have made many contraptions to control my environment to keep it from engulfing me. These everyday items are required. They help me define it, and they distinctly define me.

I am the caregiver. I am the guardian. It needs me. I know what’s best and I am the master over it. Or is it that it totally and completely dominates me? I am the one who controls, and I am the one who is controlled. I am both. Playing a tug of war with the meaning of love. Am I worse off for loving so deeply? Or is it worse off for being cherished so enormously?

I give so much of myself to love like this. I lose myself. It is weighted under my love. It is bound by expectations.

What have I created?