Locals only preview
Wednesday, November 22, 6—10 pm
Performances start at 7 pm
Exhibition through December 20

Vernissage
Monday, December 4, 6—10 pm
Performances start at 7 pm

Free + open to the public 
Tuesday, December 5 —10, 10 am — 6 pm
Saturday, December 9, 10 am— 12 pm
Performances start at 10 am

Spinello Projects is pleased to present a sprawling exhibition consisting of four solo projects: Facing West – Responsible Inclusive Violence by Sinisa Kukec, Stranger by Naama Tsabar, Comestica by Agustina Woodgate and Control by Antonia Wright. The multimedia projects feature kinetic performance, sound, sculpture, installation, and video.

Facing West, by Sinisa Kukec, is an interactive sculpture that invited the community to participate in the making of the piece, through responsible inclusive violence. It consists of a monolith made of steel and wood, with a polished aluminum mirror face, along with a small mountain of crushed granite fist sized stones. Kukec provided a warning and detailed instructions to be read and understood by those who choose to participate in the mark-making. Only after reading and signing a legal disclosure, were the participants allowed to enter the space and throw stones. Kukec was the first to throw a stone at the reflective mirror, and over the course of a few weeks the community completely erased the reflective surface and rendered it a pock marked abstraction.

Stranger, by Naama Tsabar, is a video work featuring two musicians, who negotiate the use of a new instrument comprised of two chromed  plated electric guitars put together at their back. The act of multiplying serves almost as a handicap, imposing new movement and sound. Throughout the video the performers explore the use of the object both separately and together, resulting in a dance that moves at once through gentle and violent states. Establishing a new kind of intimacy, they explore the relationship between two bodies that hold one shared border.

Cosmetica, by Agustina Woodgate, is a new makeup collection. Manufactured by hand sanding more than 300 maps, Woodgate erodes territorial markers, collecting and separating the dust by color. One of these maps, The Country in Flames, is now a defaced educational map of North America, once used in schools to teach the history of the continent. Sanding maps becomes the excuse for creating dust. The dust is composed of ink particles which at one time denoted historic and economic data, names of territories, and other references of land and water distribution. A powder press machine compresses every last bit of this dust into cosmetic compacts. The dust appears as make-up, cover-up, an unusable palate to conceal an imperfect terrain, to perpetuate an illusion of smooth and clearly defined features. The powders are embedded and embossed in stone plaques, residue from Alliance Monument, a headstone company.

Control, by Antonia Wright, is a performative sculpture in which Wright substitutes the body with the ubiquitous police barricade. Control viscerally captures today’s political climate and protest climate driven by fear and violence. The installation is activated through scheduled performances where the audience is instructed to stand within a confined space facing towards a supersized barricade. Like a firearm, several rounds of standard  “crowd control” barriers are violently launched at the audience. Ricocheting off the steel bars, the barricade becomes a physical shield, protecting the crowd from harm’s way, while psychologically experiencing the violence.

Featured image: Portrait of Antonia Wright with Control installation. Photo by Diana Larrea.