Chipped Teeth & Empty Bellies

This is a written description [transcribed without the use of AI from the audio description] and gallery walk through of Chipped Teeth & Empty Bellies by Alekz.

00:05 We're starting in the Kellen gallery, the large gallery with a window facing 13th Street. Upon walking into the gallery, you’re met with dozens of works of art on all sides. If we follow down the wall with the title, the first work we’re going to encounter is a blue risographed zine dangling on a chain. This zine is titled turbocharging structure with shape: a chipped teeth & empty bellies companion text. If you flip through it, you'll find artist introductions that are hand-written with a doodled self portrait, a book that's been important for their practice, a description of their studio in the middle of making their works, and the title of their thesis paper. At the end of the zine, you’ll find a reading list with all the books mentioned, & an index with all of the words listed. A separate audio recording has been made to read the contents of the zine that you can find on the same website as this audio description.

00:51 Next, there's a monitor, a monitor with video installation and sounds that plays in the space. The sound is of two voices speaking at once, both reading a text, Dear Girl, in Chinese in unison. An English translation plays on closed captioning at the bottom of the screen for the duration of the video. The image is of two Barbies who stare each other, so identical that it could be just a mirror image of one. The two Barbies smile unerringly while their eyes stare, quiver, and then blink, and repeat. This piece is Dear Girl by Yi Chen. Single channel video, sound; 20 minutes and 14 seconds.

01:26 When you turn the corner, you're met with three large portraits and an installation on the floor in front of it. The first of the three portraits is of an Indian woman resting on a couch with an arm over her head, and the other hand resting on her dog. She rests her eyes. On the couch with her is a bright yellow textile with a repeating pattern, perhaps of wheat, a blanket that is a bright turquoise/teal blue. Her pants are a hot pink. The background is white with a cube of deep blue. There are two hands in the bottom left corner of another person. The painting is almost four feet tall. The second painting is larger than life, more than six feet tall by about six feet wide. We're seeing an Indian woman laying in a bubble bath. Her hip and shoulder are just peeking above the bubbles. Her head and one hand resting on the rim of the bathtub, her eyes shut. She looks peaceful. The bathtub is pink, and the tiles are a deep blue with just perceptible leaf patterns repeating on the tiles. The third painting is thinner than both of them and about the same height as the first, and is the most saturated with color. Another young Indian woman stands in a blue outfit mixing something in a bowl. Her hair is long, on her face there seems to be contentment as she looks down at her mixing bowl. In the background there are mountains, there's a hot pink piece of lined paper with notches cut out of it & arrows pointing down, implying a folding. There are words in a crossword style behind the legs of this young woman that obscure the word. However, we can infer that it says “annihilation of caste” when we know the titles of her works.

On the floor, the installation is a long, yet thin, blue wooden box with no lid. Painted on the outer edges are a number of white outlines of a jaguar. Seen in sequence is clear that they are stills of a stop motion. Inside seems to be filled with something like gravel next to broken clay tiles. Though upon closer inspection, we see that there is a tablet on the far left side nestled into these stony fragments. This box is so low to the ground, that to read or to see these things, one must lean over a great deal. A few of the fragments are scattered on the face of the tablet. On the tablet, there's a video playing of people jumping, stomping, stepping on these unfired clay tablets with text on them. They're in a park, and the jumping is playful. The energy is high, and upbeat. A little baby makes the first step on the tile. Closer inspection of the more intact tiles shows us the following text: “If a shudra listens to the recitation of the vedas, molten ledge should be poured into his ears.” “If the shudra gains health or education, he should be humbled and made to serve the higher varnas.” “A learned brahmana should not teach the vedas the shudra even for money as it is against Dharma.” This work is by Shrujana Niranjani Shridhar. The first of the portraits is titled, Mukta Salve's Divya Malhari, it is gouache on canvas & is 49.5 by 30.5 inches. The second is Mukta Salve's Hritik Lalan, gouache on canvas, 68 by 70.8 inches. The third is Mukta Salve's Shreeja Rao, gouache on canvas. 50.5 by 28 inches. This piece is titled, Manusmriti Dahan (Annihilation of Caste), unfired clay, henna, wood. The video is with collaborators, with Aslan Z Neethipudi, Benson Neethipudi, Christina Dhanuja, David Sathuluri, Divya Malhari, Mil Fienco, Sriyan, Taylor Castro, Vanda Focanti,Manusmriti Dahan (Annihilation of Caste) video, 3 Minutes, 5 Seconds.

04:44 Continuing further down this wall, we see three mammoth charcoal drawings hung vertically, one over the other. They're larger than life, wider than one person is tall, and to see the very top one, you have to crane your neck to the top of the wall. They're highly textural, illustrative, the paper itself is tacked up at the corners & lifting at the edges for a shadow to make its way between the wall and the paper. In the illustration seem to be dense clouds, something faceted like a choppy sea or perhaps a fireball; something slashes across the page like a starburst or lightning striking. There are deep blacks, gentle grays, between spaces of white paper. Something like walls, like monuments, seem to appear in the bottom panel, while something else like a mirage or a puddle seems to glimmer in another fireball or explosion or burst of light. This triptych is by Vanda Focanti and titled Panoramica, charcoal on paper, each panel is 100 by 40 inches.

05:42 After this, there are two steps before a wall of windows. If you make a sharp right turn and crane your head around the corner, you'll see a giant, cork board collage. Any viewer no matter how tall they are will have to crane their neck up to see the very top. Corke is visible between pages of a ephemera, photos, collages, poems, zine pages, notes to self, magazine pages, and more. This installation is reminiscent of a bulletin in a cafe or outside of a library where community members can come to hang up signs and posters. It's also reminiscent of a home cork board, of references and inspiration in a studio. The eye can wander, but it catches on a few words. At the very top, there are four red stencil letters-together they read: G O N E. They're layered over something handwritten that you can't quite make out. You can see a collaged page with the words, “what will be”. There's a drawing of an installation that came to the artist in a dream, and in the center on graph paper is a hand drawn knitting pattern on three pages of graph paper that reads: “I don't want you to think she was weak. She wasn't.”

Pictures of light streaming in through windows, trees, birds flying, collages with hands. There's a Polaroid photo that you can't quite make out. There's a map of the twin lakes park. There's a found card that is a love note to a husband. Repeated at the words She left, she left, she left. Remember, remember, remember, remember. O, mother, o, mother, o, mother. And on top of each of these are more layers of photos, of trees, of light, of things found on the ground, and so on. This piece is by Alekz Thoms titled glimpse something by means of diagonals. Photographs (found, lost, artist’s, family archive), scanographs, collages, almost collages, incidental collages, artist’s ephemera, zine, pins, gallery architecture. This work is 7 feet tall by 4 feet wide.

07:40 By stepping back up those two steps and looking to your right, you see a monumental sculpture. It's three tiered. It's metal; there are metal sheets cut organically, 1 on the floor almost looks like a giant puddle, from which a number of tubes protrude. On the top of these tubes is another metal sheet cut organically. But just underneath those metal sheets are these undulating sculptures that seem to be made of dirt, earth. All the volume is beneath. Some of the tubes are steel, some of them are clear plastic filled with what looks to be more dirt, organic objects. In some of them, humidity has fogged it up. This piece is by McKenna Goade, “as I let go of what to me was the world” (From Clarice Lispector’s The Passion According to G.H.) Food Waste Compost (Apple Cores, Arugula, Avocado Skin, Banana Peels, Cardboard, Cassava Starch Bioplastic, Compostable Bags, Drink Holders, Flower Petals, Flower Stems, Former Algae-Bioplastic Experiments, Former Peach Tongue Tattoo Poems, Found Branches, Ginger Skin, Napkins, Orange Peels, Oyster Mushrooms, Paper Towels, Parsley Stems, Pine Needles From Home, Pistachio Shells, Woodchips, ongoing), Compost Bio-Composite (Sifted Compost, Agar Agar Binder), Red Wigglers, Acrylic Tubes, Stainless Steel Tubes, Stainless Steel Bolts, Cold Rolled Steel Sheet, Steel Rod and Flat Stock, Matte Medium, Silicone Plugs. 8 by 8 by 4 feet.

09:08 Just to step to the left of this piece is a fairly large white podium on top of this is a black teapot. The black is so deep and so matte that it seems like a void. But, as you look closer, this black does not cover the entirety of the teapot. There are these reflective almost veins running through the piece. The black looks almost like velvet. The shadow makes it look like it's sitting on a compressed version of itself. This piece is by artist H, Utah Teapot, resin, viscose, acrylic, mica. 7.3 by 15.3 by 9.5 inches.

09:41 Just a step away from this podium, laying flat on the floor, are two panels, sheets almost, of what appears to be dirt, or a type of compressed earth. This is transparent gelatinous looking film that looks as if it's been peeled from one spot and placed on these sheets. Two metal rods connect and flank these panels. This piece is by McKenna Goade titled, we become-with each other or not at all. From Donna Haraway is staying with the trouble. -- Compost Bio—Composite (Sifted Compost, Agar Agar Binder), Pine, Central Park Algae Bioplastic (Water, Glycerine, Foraged Algae), PVA This piece is 1.75 inches by 5 foot 10 by 34 inches each.

10:22 Then if you turn around and look at the wall, you'll see a painting in cool gray, warm browns, and hints of pink and lavender. It's a very layered still life of toys and weapons. There are two medieval maces, brown spheres with spikes with a chain connecting them. Leaning against one is a blonde, white doll in a lavender dress. Sitting next to an ultra reflective miniature Statue of Liberty. On the other mace is a toy fish with its mouth agape beside another broken doll. Behind it there are bubbles, and a poised hand with a knife between the fingers. This piece is by Karis Huang titled In The Middle of Dying, oil on canvas, 180 by 72 inches.

11:03 Following along this wall, we see a massive, extremely bright and colorful tapestry. It's evident that it is handsew, the entire quilt-like project itself. It's reminiscent of a blanket, of a wall hanging, of a banner, of a backdrop. There are many different types of fabrics, so they all shine differently in the light. There are bright pinks, deep oranges, deep blues--the scene it creates is of a saturated sunset by blue waters, perhaps a pond, perhaps a waterfall, with deep foliage, perhaps bushes, perhaps trees, perhaps grass. There are clouds in a blue sky, perhaps it's rain, perhaps it's a waterfall. And among all of this are tiny red velvet women, all of them are nude. Their details are drawn with marker on red velvet. The small scale of these women makes the scale of the banner even more expansive. There are three larger red figures whose hair is applied as an applique, as braided brown fabric that seems to almost drip down the canvas. If you walk around the back of the piece, you see what could be a night sky; deep, deep blues that are almost black, brighter blues, lighter blues, with a few sparkling stars in the sky, and golden fabric appliques that read, “wake up and ache for your life”. It's hung from the ceiling with a bright pink fabric wrapped pipe. This piece is by Mil Fienco and Collaborators Kim Silva, Izzy Purcell, Gracie Jeffers, Taylor Castro, Mariluz, Tenzin Sherpa, Drew Deng, Bri. Titled, “MIRA! LAS HIJAS DEL VERANO/PARAÍSO”. Cotton (Red, Coral, Orange, Green, Blue, White), Satin (Fuchsia, Gold, Light Blue, Lime Green, Forest Green, Dark, Green, Black), Velvet (Pink, Beige, Blue, Gold) Gold, Fushia, White, Brown and Emerald Thread, Fabric Scraps, Gel Pen. 72 by 108 inches.

13:13 Now you come to the far right corner of the gallery, and reaching from the ceiling to the floor is a yellowish film with holes, punctures, in some spots it's peeled up, lumped together like when you get glue stuck on your hands and you try to peel it off. Beside this is a huge monitor with a video of a young white woman with her brunette hair out of her face with a claw clip, covering herself in liquid latex, which she then peels off, grimacing in pain as she pulls it from her baby hairs, from her neck, from sensitive skin. She peels it off, like shedding great chunks of skin, from her shoulders, her arms, her chest, her torso. In front of this there's a small table or stool that holds a remote control & the technology that plays the video. These pieces are by Emīlija Berga, On Touching, single channel video projection, 13 minutes and 38 seconds, and Exfoliation, peeled and dried liquid latex, variable dimensions.

14:07 As you follow along this wall, you're met with a number of white objects that almost disappear into the wall except for their stark shadows. Upon closer inspection, there is a great deal of detail and texture, and it is made out of graph paper--what seems to be paper-mache... pressed into a mold, perhaps? The details are quite sharp for being made out of paper. There's dirt in some of them. There are two large paper sculptures on the floor of something industrial that can't quite be made out. Was this one a car door, a sink, another metal component? On each of these, the pop of color is a metal clamp- one red, one black. On the wall, there's one small almost square paper piece, that is lifted off of the wall by long threaded screws, casting a shadow larger than the piece itself. Then, there's a long piece of paper with these abstract shapes; upon closer inspection, it looks as if the artist has drawn out the shapes of the compressed switch boxes from the earlier piece Encountering Air Pockets across the room. This is similarly lifted off the wall with long threaded screws to create empty volume between the wall and the object. A vent somewhere in the space forces the paper to undulate. These pieces are by Becca Dugas. The largest piece on the floor is A Faceless Silhouette Awaiting Optimization. Graph paper, polyvinyl acetate, petroleum jelly, dirt, 24 by 24 by 48 inches. The smallest paper piece is Fleuron, graph paper, polyvinyl acetate, petroleum jelly, dirt, four by six by three inches. And the large paper drawing is Bodies That No Longer Cohere, graphite on film, nails, magnets. 62 by 20 by 2 inches.

15:45 We've reached the next corner of the gallery. And in this corner, a monitor's tucked just at the right angle of the corner. Flanking this monitor are two clear sacks of electric tealights that glow and flicker. Flanking these are two headphones on the wall. Their cords are long and winding, pooling on the floor and disappearing in the crack between the almost inch gap between the concrete floor and the white wall. The video alternates between playing one scene on the whole screen and in three screens, three scenes happening separately at the dimensions of an iPhone screen. Some of them are screen recordings, scrolling. They're all mundane; some are self portraits, some are abstract and void-like. At one point there are captions. There is no voice, just a soft electronic instrumental. Some of the captions read, “written in dust and relayed in a voice that is not my own. -- form is formalized only when it ceases to exist. -- Dead residue which is not my voice.” The video itself is a city landscape at night flashing past the window of a car or a train. This piece is by Jackie Brady and is titled P(). Single channel video installation, variable, 7 minutes.

16:54 Following along the wall to the left is a series of pale spheres that almost blend into the wall; they’re at their most overt in the shadow. Something like metal branches protrude from the wall, each holding a small ceramic ball, approximately the size of an egg. Somebody of average height, standing, would have to look up to see the tallest of these installed pieces. Upon closer inspection, each of these almost white spheres has a glazed letter in relief. These letters are in groups like H, P-B-V, F, M, T, D, S-Z, G, N, Ñ, K-C-Q, O-U-E-I- A. Just to the right and closer to the floor of these balls is a page from a book removed and pinned with a large crowd of white and black birds. It is captioned, “Albatrosses on Layson Island”. This piece is by Juana Vargas Moreno, On the forgetting of language. Ceramic, glaze, custom made steel hardware, print, pins, approximate place of articulation. 70 by 35 inches.

17:56 The final work on the wall closest to the door on your left is an installation with a series of one repeated image. This piece goes from about t=chest height on the wall, all the way down to the floor, curving and continuing along the floor. It is one repeated image of a Chinese woman with short brown hair, staring straight forward in the tracksuit. There are six rows of these images. The first five of them are inverted colors, a photo negative. All of these are upside down, except for one, in the top row. The sixth row laying on the floor, the same photo, all in color--the positive--all upright. This is a series of self-portraits of the artist, Yi Chen, titled The Warmest Color, image transfer on metal, 45.5 by 88 by 15.5 inches.

18:41 Turning back now to the center of the space is a huge sculpture with large driftwood logs that are housed inside of what seems to be a rusted scaffolding. Something protrudes from them like spikes on a porcupine. Upon closer inspection, it appears to be incense. These sticks are placed in the natural cracks of the driftwood, resting on the tops of the wood and on the floor are ceramic sculptures of people. One is of a nude man, crouching, covered in a blue snake that extends from his groin across his legs, slithers up his back. In his hand is a real cigarette. On the floor, in the shadow of the driftwood underneath these incense spikes, there's a man with a very cheerful smile. One leg folded up in front of him, the other one outstretched, with a tattered shoe, his toes are poking out. In his hand, he has a gourd flask. He has a blue hat and blue fabric at his waist. His ribs are protruding. There's a strand of wooden beads wrapped around his neck that pools in his lap. There's a small sculpture of a man holding what appears to be a cloud. There's a larger, very reflective sculpture of a cat with its hackles raised. There are paper scrolls stuffed inside his hollow belly, spilling out onto the floor around him. A wooden privacy screen coded in a type of wax. This piece is by Diego Qi, Altar, driftwood, ceramic, metal, mixed material, 7 by 7 by 7 feet.

20:00 In the middle of the space are two huge columns. The column closest to the entrance has a poem on each face. The text is very tall. Anybody would have to crane their neck to see to the top of the tallest of the text. The first face of the column, the one facing the door, appears to be an index of things found. At the very top of the text is a title, The things they lost along the way. A full description and recitation of these poems is available on the same website you'll [read] this description on. Some of the text reads, “to find two unopened condoms, to find a three ring binder ruler, to find a French curve ruler, to find a family Christmas card, to find hand sanitizer, to find a note to self. This is a seven foot long poem. Installed at eye level for an average height standing adult, is a wooden organizer filled with found lost objects: pages of children's board books, a red mouth guard, fireless sparkler, a lotion bottle, fidget toys, two front teeth, a playing card with a phone number, two stamps, a number of hair clips, postcard, a broken pencil, a Yoshi-driven card, and so on. The second face of the wall has the tallest poem, at 10 feet tall. It towers over the viewer, another indexical poem titled The Things They Left Btwn The Pages. An excerpt of this one is “inside a find a torn wine ad, inside a find a phone number, inside a find the wax paper from an envelope adhesive, inside i find a handmade child's birthday invitation,” and so on. Installed over these poems are two paper-mached three-tiered shelves with a number of spiral bound books. The front of the first shelf says “has it ever been anything but?” the second one says “there is no tomorrow!” These are all in the same stamp font. It also says, “read me” “pick me up”. The books are a number of different sizes with all different materials: a postcard, a rubric, a manuscript page, a post-it, a paperclip that dangles from the center of the spiral. The third face of the column is a poem titled, The Things She Left Behind. An excerpt of this text is: “she left the cell phone. She left coffee pods in a drawer by order of strength. She left those bags, meant months ago for goodwill, finally at goodwill. She left a felted purse, ochre, with embroidered flowers & a brown leather strap. She left lipgloss.” Just below the text “She left between a log & a bolder, between a rock & a hard place,” there is a white shelf on the shelf are five objects made from paper pulp and paper-mache A nondescript hour glass shaped deodorant, an unlabelled white medication bottle, an open blush compact with the center of the blush worn down to the metal pan, a bottle of pink nail polish, and a white mug that reads, “Instan human, just add coffee”. The final face of this column contains a ten foot sheet of paper. Only the bottom four feet have text. This text reads, “which is to say, the way the sidewalk crack holds a large button. Which is to say gloves hold and are held, which is to say the way the car bumper, grill, hood, windshield, side mirrors are flat with bug bodies, victims of gravity or wind or bad timing, the way they smack like rain on the highway. Which is to say rain on the highway.” Again, a full description of this piece is on AlekzThoms.com. This piece is by Alekz Thoms, more than an object, its shadow. poems, found bookmarks, spirals; lost objects (including 2 teeth, unopened condoms, a yoshi-driven toy car, picture book pages, et al); paper clay, paint, found shelf. Title from Água Viva by Clarice Lispector, translated by Stefan Tobler.

23:33 If you turn around from this piece here confronted with a number of scattered ceramic objects that make you walk delicately. There are a number of spheres, varying in size and color. These are clay objects. Some of them are in a very light, almost white clay body. Some of them are in deep brown, almost black clay body, and other shades of brown between. Many of these these spheres are sitting on something like jacks from the game with jacks and balls, or the burner from a stove top. Each of these spheres has a text almost imperceptible on them in gentle relief. There’s a large white bird with pale yellow-pink beak and feet. This bird is dead. This bird is an albatross. Some of the text is an English, some is in Spanish, some is in Italian. Some of the words you can make out are, “healthy who have / the world to the brink”, “quella cosa leggara”, “importa”. These pieces are by Juana Vargas Moreno, the sculpture of the albatross is titled Pues aquí ser es llamarse [Here, to be is to be called] bisqueware, encaustic wax, oil paint. 28 inches by 18 inches. The title of this This the ceramic spheres are Not with a Bang. Ceramics, glaze, variable dimensions.