Brian Dewan "Housed"
Pierogi
This event has ended.
Housed is a collection of paintings, drawings and constructions presented in a domicile-like setting where viewers may make themselves at home. The work portrays a variety of structures in which something might belong, or dwelling places for human beings, animals, inanimate objects, spirits (pie safe, bat house, reliquary, and home for female employees, to name a few).
The focal point of this exhibition is a filmstrip chronicling a fictitious utopian society called Williams' Meadow, "an ideal indoor advanced living community," a bizarre hybrid of retirement community, gymnasium, theme park—a retirement community reflecting the peculiar ideals of its late founder, Gregory J. Williams. Filmstrips are a form of projected image, like a sequenced slide show, originally used for public school and religious education from the 1920s through the '70s. The image frames are advanced by hand, frame-by-frame. Dewan's nostalgia-tinted filmstrips are reproductions of his own drawings with accompanying narration and music.
In many of these pictures and models we are peering into windows or finding ourselves being peered at through windows of inhabited structures, from the diminutive guard booth to the large institutional residence. Whether too big, too small or just right, the domiciles of Housed explore the concept of belonging, home, and domesticity. This will be Brian Dewan’s third exhibition at Pierogi. His previous I-CAN-SEE filmstrips include Before the White Man Came, Deuteronomy, Grimm's Tales, Neighbors in the Solar System, The Course of Your Research, The King of Instruments, and The Habit of Innovation, among others.
[Image: Williams Meadow "Film Strip Still" (2009) Watercolor on Paper, 9 x 12 in.]
Media
Schedule
from February 06, 2009 to March 08, 2009
Closing Reception on 2009-03-07 from 21:00
Live Dewanatron performance (with surprise guests).