Curatorial
Disobedience, Abstraction, and the Opposable Thumb
September 10 - October 6, 2010
Curated by Cable Griffith
Kirkland Arts Center
Kirkland, WA
www.kirklandartscenter.org
A solo exhibition by Brian Gillis (Eugene OR), NO! transforms the gallery into an open question in an effort to understand the role disobedience has played throughout human development through a juxtaposition of seemingly separate installations. A series of quietly connected elements combine video, a model tank, a home-made safe dialer, hydroponic agriculture, a quadraped bicycle, and a fully-functional reprographics center with reference library as an invitation to consider the definition’s peripheral. Together, these otherwise disparate components turn adversity into advantage by breaking convention and expectation. Gillis looks at the balance between the act of disobedience and the condition or situation it rejects as an entity that galvanizes thought, asserts the individual, and propels progress. He sets a stage that suggests saying, “No!” can be affirmative.
Image: Gallery installation. Courtesy of the artist.