We are all Ephemera

I finally visited Cinders Gallery in Brooklyn. Their exhibitions always combine installation/immersive environment with salable work.

I saw Monica Canilao's "We Are Dust" With a team of friends help, she used found materials from a rundown church in a town who's name i can't remember in Pennsylvania offering opportunities to revitalize its abandoned buildings. (Swoon won a bid to work on this particular church. ) The woods from the church pews and building were used to transform Cinders Gallery. Portions of the walls up into the ceiling were resurfaced with it or painted in washes of browns.

This created the structure in which to display the body of salable work. They were a collection of collaged, painted, mixed media on old, found b&w photographs. Probably everyone that's in them is without doubt dead. I liked the juxtaposition of the death of the people in the photos with the death of the church in contrast to their rebirth through the collaged works and immersive environment.

In the middle of the room was a sort of fort. I asked the curator if it was ok to go in. He assured me it was and volunteered that sometimes he'll take a little nap in there.

After looking at the images on the wall, I decided to venture in. It was cozy and comfy made of fabrics. A delightful respite after a day of travel and an interview... And at the end of the tunnel I was rewarded with the vision of an old dusty disco ball, with many of its mirrored squares long gone from the surface, as if it had been resurrected from its death. This was surely the moment of bliss in the piece. The death of the party, the party's coffin within a church's coffin. Reminds me of a metaphor Baudrillard used in Seduction....alas.... death of memories too....



It was a nice reflection on earth life cycle, dust and dirt and wood and a disco ball.... community......a vision, and labor, and rebirth.

images in blog shamelessly taken from:
http://www.todseelie.com/monicacanilaocindersgallery/index_3.html

PS I checked out Swoon's public art piece along the river too... image coming soon