Past

DW Fitzpatrick

3 Dollar Bill

Apr. 29–June 17, 2018

New York

Gordon Robichaux is pleased to present 3 Dollar Bill, an installation of new work by Daphne Fitzpatrick. The exhibition is staged to evoke a stroll through the city streets. Here, a choreographed flânerie of objects, artifacts, and intervening architecture act to guide the viewer on a tour of boulevards littered with subversive cultural innuendo. Her photographs and mixed-media assemblages—previously described as exercises in “neo-surrealism” and “trash-nouveau”—reflect her hobo-dandy, slapstick, feminist sensibilities. In Fitzpatrick’s city, one-liners rub shoulders with double entendre, and everyday minutiae are the vehicle with which we navigate the grid.

A raw, constructed plywood ramp appropriates a chunk of the space, offering the viewer a means of ascent, as a succession of “lampposts” mounted on the wall leads the way. The mise-en-scène is a landscape of “blunt sight gags” notable for its “cartoonish plainness”: a slice of Swiss cheese cantilevered on a Buffalo nickel, a pipe and faucet posing as a cane, a yellow tire chock, a cylinder of Quaker Oats, and a box of raisins.

Each scenario is a suggestive yet succinct device, like an O’Hara “Lunch” poem, which sheds light upon allusions to pointed, often cinematic, cultural references and kitsch. Querelle, for example, evokes Fassbinder’s 1982 film and Fitzpatrick’s interest in the relationship between its stylized set and the male body. Observing the lamps from the wonky perspective of the incline calls to mind perennial images of theatrical masculinity: men swinging ‘round or suavely leaning against lampposts, or the drunkard clinging to a post to prevent inebriated collapse.

The height of the ramp extends to the base of the windows, framing a view of airshafts and sky. Affixed to the windowpane is Carson McCullers in a Suit, a photographic nod to the American author attributed with introducing the queer-ish tomboy protagonist to mainstream awareness. A seemingly double-exposed photograph printed on Duratrans, the backlit image depicts a translucent lightbulb dressed in the caress of its own image.

From atop the ramp, facing inward, the perspective of the gallery is transformed into an absurdist spectacle. Many of the gallery’s light bulbs have been removed, and with the exception of the daylight coming in through the two, large windows, most of the light is generated from jerry-rigged lamps and Fitzpatrick’s works. As heads graze the ceiling, viewers descend to a more normalized perspective, where Fitzpatrick’s works on view engage in a continuous confrontation with convention, a playful fight whereby the artist’s joie de vivre provokes and prevails.

—Jenni Crain

On Sunday, June 3rd, Gordon Robichaux will host an event dedicated to the history and legacy of Trial Balloon, a feminist, artist-run, alternative space located in SoHo during the early ‘90s, and co-founded Nicola Tyson and Angela Lyras.

Install (7)

Works

It’s Easier for a Rope—Or Was It a Camel?

Archival pigment print mounted on Sintra

53 x 40 inches

2018

Querelle

Red oak, wiring, string, found nail, and 15-watt incandescent bulb

76 x 8 x 13 inches

2018

A Fire Is Such Company!

Found objects

52 x 3 x 5 inches

2018

After Q, Comes R

Steel conduit, wiring, and 15-watt incandescent red bulb

65 x 4 x 7 inches

2018

Wheel Chock 8 x 8

Found object

12 x 11 x 8 inches

2018

Six Degrees of Separation with Walt Whitman

Copper pipe, penny, wiring, and 7-watt incandescent bulb

24 x 48 x 26 inches

2018

Cary Grant and Randolph Scott

Beeswax and Buffalo nickel

6 x 12 inches

2018

The Walrus & The Carpenter

Found object

24 x 7 x 5 inches

2018

Slaphappy

Found safety glass, silicone, wood, drywall, clamp light, and 100-watt incandescent bulb

20 x 19 x 0.12 inches

2018

Bachelor Hall

Archival pigment print

27 x 20 inches

2018

Peg Leg

Found object and plinth constructed with found Masonite

53 x 12 x 8 inches

2018

Carson McCullers in a Suit

Duratrans

22 x 27 inches

2018

Health and Wealth in 5 Parts

Found objects, clamp lights, and 100-watt incandescent bulbs

64 x 96 x 16 inches

2018

Twenty Feet on Fulton Street

Archival pigment print mounted on Sintra

53 x 40 inches

2018

Lampy

Ceramic, wiring, and 7-watt incandescent bulb

4 x 2 x 2 inches

2018

Publications

XXVI 'Alles Gutte’

2016

Roman Nvmerals, Vol. XXVI
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Gordon Robichaux