Selavy Oh’s The Final Show
Let me preface this post by stating that I voted for Selavy Oh’s The Final Show for the Golden Eyeball Award. There are a multitude of reasons why, but foremost, because it’s restless, complex and thought provoking. All of the works in The Final Five were outstanding and vote worthy, and I was extremely proud to contribute to the show (including two rather sweaty and long real life installation days), but it was Selavy’s that left me hashing and parsing, and revisiting the piece with its varied, encapsulated art works and shifting walls. It seems that no two visits are quite the same.
I’m a hybrid myself, and that could also be another reason why I lean towards Selavy’s entry as virtual artist/curator. Or perhaps it is the wry decision to subvert the competition, judging process, and restrictions of a real life gallery space, and curate one’s very own fantasy exhibition in an uncanny space that seems to live and breathe on its own. Moreover, I agree with Selavy’s selections, and appreciate Arahan Claveau, Dekka Raymaker, Comet Morigi, Oberon Onmura, Misprint Thursday (and a reserved space for Ichibot Nishi) being added to the final mix of artists.
But what is most interesting, as The Final Show is Selavy’s presented artwork so that will be my focus here, is the artistic act to go curator, and more or less select a Final Five Salon des Refuses. There is of course a history to be acknowledged of artist/curators, meaning artists who curate or artists that use curating as part of their artistic practice (Richard Hamilton, Marcel Broodthaers, more), and a rich history of major avant-garde movements that mounted their own renegade art exhibits (Surrealists, Impressionists, more). Selavy followed a curatorial impulse and filled a perceived gap with fellow 30 Best artists instead of Oh-ing-over the virtual Jack the Pelican space. Yet Selavy’s viewpoint, as curatorial editor with aesthetic preferences, and appropriator/builder of the gallery space that frames the work, contextualizes and controls meaning by those very decisions of how to display the work in virtual space, and whom to display. So what is the level of authorship here? Omnipresence by absence is too easy, and Selavy is certainly not taking a back seat, and in fact created a seat that makes your avatar stick his/her/its tongue out and teleport!
Like the layered work itself, Selavy’s artistic act in The Final Show is open to multiple readings, including the brief notecard of intent that Selavy left. My main locations of meaning are listed below, but please feel free to create more and respond in comments.
- Collaboration and experimentation: to include multiple voices for a more democratic, and more openly conversational exchange of meaning, in tandem with the spirit of Brooklyn Is Watching.
- Curation as creative act: to select, edit, and frame artwork in a specific way, to produce collective meaning.
- Power shift: to dismantle structure, rebel, and push given parameters, as applied to the rules of the competition/show, or art institution/gallery system.
- Virtual “Hamlet” or a show within a show within a show permutation: to create a virtual space that exists as a “play within a play” dramatic device, a mode of criticism for the illumination of truth.
Selavy’s act showed an intriguing, contradictory combination of thoughtful intuition and planned risk. Moreover, as an audience member, and one who has been working in and around the arts in NYC and following the BOBIWY1 competition quite closely, I left Selavy’s work with a sense of empowerment, and that the playing field had been somewhat leveled. Whether a catalyst, provocateur, collaborator, or auteur, or combination of all the above, the debate is on, and will probably go on for a while in my own head regarding Selavy’s positioning in The Final Show. Again, justifying why this is luscious Golden Eyeball worthy ART, and a delicious critical chew toy to wrestle with.
*For more images of Selavy Oh’s The Final Show, visit Soup or flickr for a slide show of Mab MacMoragh’s experience with the piece.
*For more related reading on the topic of artist as curator, check out the series of essays in The Next Documenta Should Be Curated by an Artist.
moncherrie, thanks a lot for this excellent discussion of our work. our work, since this would not have been possible without the collaboration and dedicated support of the five contributing artists, who delivered their share within such a short time. thanks to all of you!
Left by Selavy on August 22nd, 2009