A sharp bend in center — The White Page Gallery, Minneapolis (2018)
Two shows – one built for the night and one for the day.
An exhibition made as a stage set for a play that doesn’t exist, a musical with no score. Dramas displayed in tableaus and still lifes. Small clues found in corners and angles, a world changing with each layer placed between objects.
Build a room. One with no ceiling. It is square . It is rectangular. It has no door. The wall becomes the door. Include hinges. Put it in the corner. Don’t shove it in the corner. The inside — exposed structure [if seen]. The outside— finished. painted. smooth. grey.
Open up.
Lift Slightly.
“Colors appear connected predominantly in space. Therefor, as constellations they can be seen in any direction and at any speed. And as they remain, we can return to them repeatedly and in many ways”
from, Interaction of Color, Josef Albers
“But woman’s allegedly definitive tendency to put the inside on the outside could provoke quite another reaction.”
from, The Gender of Sound, Anne Carson
Notes for an exhibition
Emotions.
Why I like to cry on the bus. Crying in public = Inner world made physical on the exterior. The heart pounding subsides. Not wanting to feel the heart. When the heart feels ache. When the heart feels happiness sometimes I cry too. I’m not sure if emotions lie in dark or light. Or if they need to reside in one. I think there needs to be both. But it isn’t black and white. It is grey all over.
Presentations. The chaos in development. The finished product and cleanliness. Interest in the chaos. Knowing how a structure runs. Seeing the facade. Knowing the roof leaks. Knowing where you are hiding the blue tape. Knowing there is a vine growing through the cracks of the building. What you hope no one will notice. Preferring people to notice. In presentations you have to get right to the point. Or build up a narrative that gets the audience to the point. There is Story. Or Discussion. Or Topic.
Topic → I am the rubber chicken with blue balls.
Topic → concealment
Example: There is a projection on the ceiling and only part of the video image is revealed. The projector is in an upside down plinth. There is more of the image then I'm revealing. I have a mirror underneath a chair that from a very specific angle you can see the full projection being reflected from the computer that is strapped under the chair. Sort of like... there is missing information, but if you look at it from another angle, it is all there. It has been there the entire time. You just had to look.
Topic → Layers and shadow
How color and light react in the darkness as opposed to in the light. How can we navigate dark space — whether physically, mentally, emotionally. What can we find there? Can there be resolution? Can there be conflict? Reflection? Fear? Same thing? How do we move in darkness? How do we move in light?
Emotions.
Easily popped. Easily hurt. Easily bruised. Easily discolored. Easy loving. Easy to pretend. Easily kept secrets. Easy to care. Easy to listen. Easy to go with the flow. Easily misunderstood. Easily overlooked. Easily misconstrued. Easily blinded. Easy to touch. Easy to see. Easy to look. Easy to be outside when you pretend to be inside.
I’ve been told I should look into Brecht and all those dead white dudes……
Brecht —Alienation effect→ “If he could 'alienate' the audience then they would approach the play intellectually, and be inspired to leave the theatre and change society.”
How do you get people to care if you are building a wall between non existing sides?
December 2017
And I’ve been thinking about distance. About what two years and five years means. And how moments can seem like whole lifetimes apart from where I’m currently sitting. standing. entering. But how feelings and emotions don’t seem to span space quite the same way. They linger in time and memory and the feeling I had when I broke my own heart or when my mom almost died can be recalled inside my body within seconds.
Is shadow a layer?
What is the speed of dark?
What is the speed of light?
Can a shadow travel faster than light?
“I want to call this life.
But I can’t call it life until we start to move beyond this secret circle of fire.
Where our bodies are giant shadows flung on a wall.
Where the night becomes our inner darkness.
And sleeps like a dumb beast, head on her paws, in the corner.” —Adrienne Rich
Maggie Heath has received a Career Opportunity Grant from the Oregon Arts Commission to help fund this project
