Rosemary Trockel’s 2008 exhibition at the Donald Young gallery is an encasing and display of remnants from people who have, for an unspecified but implied reason, left them behind. Entitled “Favorite Things”, she presents the viewer with framed collages, installations, and sculptures that are divided between two of the three gallery rooms, with two stray sculptures placed in the hallway.
The first room of the gallery contains a number of framed collages and two installation pieces. The space between each work is large enough so that each stands independently; each is a self-contained, isolated piece, successfully translating Trockel’s perception of it as representative of a singular person, concept, or thing. The only exception to this independence is the pair of installation pieces that occupy the floor of the room. I on my sofa, a piece whose placement gave me the impression that it was the first piece that I should look at, is an excessively geometric couch-like structure, on top of which is placed a framed collage much like the ones that hang on the walls surrounding it; this particular collage, however, depicts a face, albeit one composed of materials that in no way resemble a human face. I on my sofa calls attention to each piece’s reflection of a person, but more so, it provides a stark contrast to landscapian shroud of my mother, the other installation in the room. Although the base structure of landscapian closely resembles that of I on my sofa, it differs in its lack of upright planes. Rectangular portions of the surface protrude from the flat base with the exception of a rectangular area in the center of it, on top of which rests a black cloth. landscapian, even in the absense of the unnerving face that characterized I on my sofa, holds a larger sense of tragedy in it’s resemblance of a grave. Its gloomy and quiet atmosphere draws attention to the liveliness of the collages that line the walls around it.
The collages in this room consist principally of found objects, although one would not consider them simply “ready-mades”. Within each piece, which is displayed in a frame and under a sheet of glass, the found objects are combined with a variety of other substances to create the finished work. What the objects have in common is an origination from the home, or, indoor, familiar spaces that Trockel inadvertedly admits to being drawn towards. In an interview displayed at the gallery entrance, she reveals that she had “suffered from a case of agoraphobia that more or less defined [her] life[. It was a time during which she] could leave [her] apartment only with great effort” [1]. Her collages give the viewer the impression that their production grew out of first finding and choosing these found objects. Initially, the use of exclusively inherently domestic objects is a point of debate. The use of things found in the home gives her pieces a more craft-based process; they seem to have been made by someone putting together what they could find, much like one would do in making a scrapbook. Regardless of whether or not the person or connection is blatantly depicted in the piece, a ghost of these things is immediately detectable. On the other hand, if the viewer has knowledge of Trockel’s earlier bout with agoraphobia, the exclusively home-drawn objects cause him to wonder whether her condition crippled her in her artistic choices; Did she avoid choosing other objects intentionally, or because she herself was restricted to indoor, enclosed environments?
Another thought-provoking aspect of “Favorite Things” is Trockel’s decision to not only frame the collages contained in the first room, but also encase them with plexi-glass. Initially, her insistence on keeping these images restrained to a frame rather than displaying them as installations is a point of criticism, particularly on She is Dead 3; the actual presence of the objects would have given more of an impression of a previous human presence that was taken from the artist. If the actual abandoned clothes of She is Dead 3 were placed on an installed couch, they might have seemed more like memorials, tributes, or even gravestones. Being in the same vicinity as the possessions of someone who passed on would perhaps invoke greater feeling in the viewer. The fact that they are constrained to the frame and a canvas carries certain implications of a “window” in the art community, whereas installations, with their penetration into a real-world environment, connect more aptly with the viewer by defying the expectation for them to be illusionary. However, the frame/plexiglass makes the viewer feel so far removed from their contained objects that he quickly realizes that such a dissonance-heavy choice was intentional. As one looks at the pieces, he is occupied only with Trockel’s connection with the people to whom she is paying tribute. It causes curiosity, and at first, alienation and frustration; unless he had the opportunity to speak to Trockel personally and she was completely open about her work, the intimacy contained in the collages remains a vague, blurred object. The viewer can sense that this “vague, blurred object” has intricacies, an outline, details, but all of these remain elusive to anyone but Trockel.
At the end of the hallway that leads to the entrance of the second room of the exhibition are two pieces: Dessert 1 and Pot. Although an observer could think of many significantly different ideas in comparing these two, what remains constant among them is a theme of deception. Firstly, each is titled in such a way that causes the viewer to think critically about them. With its desert-like color scheme, the similarity of the title of Dessert 1 to the word “desert” causes the viewer to investigate the title in more depth. The piece is a glob of shiny ceramic material that appears to be exploding away from a flat, circular imprint in the center of it. Pot the piece that rests on the ground before it, is a glob of the same material that surrounds the flat portion of Dessert 1. The two works are spaced in a way that implies that the material of Pot was once a part of Dessert 1, and that whatever made the imprint on Dessert 1 caused the material of Pot to fall away from it.
Together, these two sculptures set up both the visual and the conceptual transition present in proceeding from the first room of the gallery to the second room. This room contains a series of sculptures, two of which appear to mimic Dessert 1; these are accordingly entitled Dessert 2 and Dessert 3. Both sculptures, hung on the wall at eye level, repeat the thought process introduced by Dessert 1; the imprint on each piece acts as an index, indicating that something caused its uncharacteristic presence on the naturally erratic, landscape-like surface of the material. Each ones placement at a general eye-level draws the viewer to look at the flattened, reflective surface in the center, only to find that he is again faced with a blurred image. However, in the case of these sculptures, the image presented is simply a blurred reflection of the viewer rather than a mental image of what preceded the creation of the collages in the first room. Trockel successfully shows her Dessert sculptures as manifestations of the aftermath that follows losing a loved one both through the imprint on the piece reflecting the emotional imprint caused by this experience, and also through the blurry reflective surface of the imprint mirroring the process of introspection and self-evaluation involved in it.
The other three pieces in the second room separate themselves slightly from the dessert pieces. While the dessert sculptures are hung on the left wall, less savage than others, dream tank, and kiss my aura are randomly spaced on the floor-space, less savage being the only one that touches the wall across from them. Each piece has a presence unlike those in Trockel’s collages; they represent the feelings one experiences as he goes through a loss, and are a part of the reflections he sees in the dessert sculptures. Dream tank consists of an opaque cup resting on top of a flimsy box-shaped surface. The instability of the surface under the cup connotes deterioration and abandonment. Although the placement of the cup on a table rather than in a sink implies that it would be filled, it is empty. Both the cup and box appear to be left-behind by someone who has no intention of returning them. In dream tank, Trockel expresses the actual feelings of crushed expectancy associated with losing a previously frequently present part of one’s life. Kiss my aura, placed directly in the implied path from dream tank to less savage than others, gives the viewer a feeling that an invisible barrier exists around the statue, and there is a level of hesitance in approaching it too closely. The final piece of the exhibition, less savage then others, holds themes that resemble those of dream tank; the piece, consisting of a table holding a mannequin head that is wrapped in an unfinished handcrafted hat, also implies unintentional abandonment.
The entirety of Rosemary Trockel’s “Favorite Things” exhibition conveys the tragedy of losing a loved one through the personal items left behind. She highlights the clothing and items that once belonged to the person as a trigger of his memory; the proof or remnants of his existence are the only thing left, and he is simply a ghost that haunts them. This use of remnants in conjunction with the lack of specificity in Trockel’s pieces shows that the trials in the aftermath of such a loss are universal, while at the same time remaining complex and personal.
[1] http://findarticles.com/p/articles/mi_m0268/is_7_41/ai_98918662/print
*jep205
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