Unit B (Gallery) is pleased to present Animalities featuring new works by Emily Landon (Brooklyn, NY) and Chris Wildrick (Syracuse, NY) on view January 15 – March 6, 2010. Animalities showcases the work of two artists that explore and consider what it is like to be an animal. Through performance and playful anecdotes their work addresses the relationship between human beings and animals from a “human nature” perspective. By attending the opening reception guests will have the option to meet the artists and partake in their individual performative quests to ascertain what it might be like to be and think as an animal.
Emily Landon is interested in exploring the space between animal and human interactions; especially the first moment of contact. For Unit B, Landon will present two works; one that will transform the gallery yard into a pasture for Texas Longhorns, and the other in the kitchen gallery where video and cut-out masks from a performance will allow attendees a first-hand account of what it might be like to exist beyond the human environment. Landon’s sculptures and drawings have been exhibited recently in Hello to You (2009), Children’s Museum of the East End, Bridgehampton, NY and The Communication Coordination Consideration (2009), Kate Werble Gallery, New York, NY which was organized by Nathan Carter.
Chris Wildrick has made a series of “sketches” for animals that help put himself in the animals place to better understand their sensory and cognitive perspective on the world. He intends to use the research of these “sketches” to figure out what kind of sensual-aesthetic-emotive-intellectual-catalytic connoisseur reactions are possible for animals to have to a work of art, and even more particularly, what kind of reactions they would want to have to a work of art. In this show, he has largely focused on cats because he knows them best and because he’s going for depth rather than breadth. Part of his exhibition in the living room gallery will show Wildrick’s “sketches” and his ability to mimic their behavior; and the other portion of his exhibit was made for you, the viewer, to physically explore and experience, with the hopes that you will find your own insights into animals’ ways of perceiving and being. Wildrick’s recent shows include, Dinosaurs Had Sharp Teeth!: Parthenogenesis and the Halocene Dinosaur (2009), Redhouse, Syracuse, NY; Happy Tree Friends (or Standing: Tree as Agent, Index, Object of Desire) II (2009), Paragraph Gallery, Kansas City, MO and Pun Intended (2006), Unit B, San Antonio, TX.
Unit B (Gallery) January 15 – March 6, 2010 Opening Reception: Friday, January 15, 6:30-10pm Unit B-Day Bash Funraiser: Saturday, January 23, 3-8pm; $20 Gallery Hours: Saturdays, 3-5pm and by appointment.
