Jo Q. Nelson “The Obstacle Course”

Mixed Greens Gallery

poster for Jo Q. Nelson “The Obstacle Course”

This event has ended.

In his exceptionally fine book The Grasshopper: Games, Life and Utopia, Bernard Suits loosely defines a game as the overcoming of unnecessary obstacles. For example, “golf” becomes a game only when, instead of simply hand-placing the golf-ball in the hole and getting on with business, we attempt to hit it there from hundreds of yards away using only specially designed little sticks. A totally unnecessary activity.

In her latest exhibition with Projective City, Jo Q. Nelson has created a course of ambiguous obstacles as potential sites of unnecessary achievement. Evoking simultaneously the playground as a space of imaginative recreation, the military training ground as a space of improvised field conditions, and the American tradition of spectacular entertainment through daredevil stunts, Nelson’s interactive “sculptures” also reference the sculptural installations of recent decades. Drawing on other venues in which spaces are transformed into sites of unnecessary play (skateboarding, parkour, playgrounds) as much as on her art historical education, her work (like all artwork) is presented both as an obstacle to be overcome (by being comprehended, fathomed, experienced) and as a space of play in which the rules and outcomes are not fixed and must be decided by each individual encounter.

Media

Schedule

from March 26, 2015 to June 06, 2015

Opening Reception on 2015-03-26 from 18:00 to 20:00

Artist(s)

Jo Q. Nelson

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