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Email PageCupola Bobber 2007
February 1, 2007- March 10, 2007
Reception: February 1, 6:00 pm - 8:00 pm
Cupola Bobber
CUE Art Foundation
511 W 25th St Cupola Bobber Study for the performance (2007) |
“They carry their home, their universe, on their backs – a cosmology part kaijin*, part Buster Keaton, part agoraphobic dread – like turtles, like immeasurable space folded into a matchbox.” — Goat Island
Mixing basic materials with homespun engineering, and bumbling wit, Chicago-based experimental performance group, Cupola Bobber (artists Tyler Myers and Stephen Fiehn), thoughtfully tinker with reality by creating imagery that hangs between staged theatrics and the utterly familiar. Their playful, poignant, physically-demanding performances often depict life as a series of quotidian exercises, interspersed with a desire for joy and connection to other beings, which ultimately leads to an eternal void. Searching for meaning in their conceived world, they try to construct some sort of comfortable existence from the few odds and ends they've provided themselves.
In homage to the irrepressible American desire to conquer distance, and with a nod towards the comic delights of vaudeville, the technological feat of the transcontinental railroad, and the inventive lens of Buster Keaton, Cupola Bobber’s premier performance of The Man Who Pictured Space From His Apartment will chronicle the duo’s struggle to imagine a railroad to the sky, while investigating the stars, the railroad, and the meaning in that parallax. In an effort to further convey the experience of pinpointing massive space through examinations of scale, distance, and discovery, Cupola Bobber will transform aspects of their performance set into a stand-alone installation at CUE.
As part of their exhibition, Myers and Fiehn will convert a portion of the gallery’s interior into a transition point for witnessing a star-filled universe through deceptively simple low-tech means, by creating a room defined by a cardboard ceiling and floor, in forced perspective, and occupied by a used drill, a ladder, and some toy cardboard bricks. Upon climbing the ladder, and placing an eye to the small hole cut into the cardboard ceiling, the viewer will see a very dim, starry night projected onto the inside surface of a box placed on top of the ceiling. This exhibition installment will be accompanied by a framed and wall-mounted, extremely lengthy letter written in very small handwriting by the occupant of the room, and addressed to the astronomers at the Mt. Wilson Observatory.
Also growing out of a sequence within the performance, a series of approximately 200, two inch by two inch black-profiled silhouette heads will be installed as a horizon line along three gallery walls. When viewed up close, drawings of symbols placed within the empty space of the heads will form an elaborate show and tell of a conversation absurdly failing to create mutual understanding, thus chronicling how the incomprehensible may instantly feel profound, yet ultimately proves illusory.
Choosing small signatures of larger objects and settings, the suggestions ask viewers to let their minds complete the images by actively engaging in their free associations. Rife with humorous and intelligent underpinnings, the works and performance on view are conceived to question rather than declare, thus allowing for the mapping of chosen words, images, and contexts as threads of thought to linger, seep in, and give cause for reflection.
*literally mysterious person, this Japanese special effects film term connotes a humanoid monster.
Books and DVDs related to artists in this show
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CUE Art Foundation was last updated: 2009-01-06
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