This article first appeared in the St. Louis Beacon, Sept. 15, 2011 - On Sept. 16, the Isolation Room will meet Mine as the two art pieces become a unified exhibit called Isolation Room: Mine. (For a review of the exhibit, go to "Review: Mine shines in Isolation.") Isolation Room will change its usual location to accommodate an underground exhibit. Visitors will be, individually, escorted by gallery attendants and/or the curators. Dana Turkovic, curator of exhibits at Laumeier and the cohost of Isolation Room writes about the show:
You
Travel with me through time and imagine....
You are standing next to what appears as a well ... it is dark ... you hear a voice, first just a whisper, but then louder and louder, and with each increase in tone, it seems that intervals in between are getting shorter as well. Now it almost sounds as if someone is telling you to jump. "Go on," someone says. "Oh Go on, it's just a Mine."
You don't know why, but it feels as if you don't have a choice ... it feels safe ... and you jump.
The Isolation Room
The Isolation Room/Gallery Kit project is an ongoing project by Daniel McGrath and Dana Turkovic and has over the past year exhibited some of the most acclaimed art pieces. It represents exactly what the name implies: in the core of our nature we are all ultimately alone.
However, Isolation Room does not take this fact as something negative. Rather, like a child that just caught a butterfly, Isolation Room invites you, isolates you, and then examines you.
And You?
You go with it... After all, Isolation Room is no stranger of yours. You grew up with it, you learned with it, you've cried many times with it, and laughed just the same. It is an outside representation of what your inner world looks like...
Inside Isolation Room, you are reminded and you feel safe. But you think. You think rapidly ... and you look around you at carefully crafted installation and you are reminded of moments when you walk up to a painting and loose your breath, forgetting who or where you are ... or when you yell, and shout, and laugh without a single sound left out ... when understanding is the only word needed, and everything else becomes a stream of emotion...
Isolation Room becomes you.
Mine
Mine is an art piece by Irish artist Ross McDonnell which explores St Louis history through sublime sensations and reflections back to his diving ventures. When far below the surface, water becomes a 3D canvas on which light refracts, as illuminations glow, taking on a life of its own.
The words echo in your mind - "What do you think about in front of art?"
If you have been drilled in art history or ruined by a taste for critical theory you are quickly capsized in sheer terror comprehending the experience by describing it to yourself in a narrative. We float in a world that is ruled by story, making it difficult to plunge into the senses directly. In the attempt to hold onto the nearest linguistic life raft, constantly trying to order experience in language so that we may repeat it to ourselves and to others the opportunity provided by simply 'plunging in' is forever lost.
Isolation Room: Mine will challenge your senses, ignite old fears, and help you find a renewed peace within yourself.
Please join us this Friday, Sept. 16 at Lemp Brewery (3500 Lemp Ave. - building 6), where we take a dive into a dark and dingy basement.
Note: The curators and/or a gallery attendant will be escorting visitors down to view the work during the opening and throughout the exhibit.