Trisha Baga - Société

ATTITUDE BECOMES DORM
MATHIEU MALOUF ON TRISHA BAGA AT GREENE NAFTALI, NEW YORK
Trisha Baga, “The Biggest Circle”, Greene Naftali, New York, 2012/13, exhibition view, Photo: Jason Mandella
Safely nested on the eighth floor of a Chelsea building, Greene Naftali was spared the flooding caused by Hurricane
Sandy that destroyed a lot of art in the neighborhood this past fall. Still, some of the trauma found its
way back to the surface upon entering Trisha Baga’s recent exhibition at the gallery. The projected image of a
palm tree on the back wall and a trail of derelict objects (as well as, occasionally, an abstract painting) sprawled
across the floor vaguely recalled scenes of destruction on Long Island beaches – with added tropical notes – as
well as photos of Chelsea gallerists and their assistants putting wet art on the curb to dry. Baga has been known
to feature prominently in her videos and perform amidst her “glamorized messes”, so the alienating atmosphere
at Greene Naftali – reinforced by the dim lighting required to view the 3D works – marked somewhat of a departure.
Still, the lack of human warmth was somewhat compensated for by the visibly hand-wrought quality of
the decoration, the generally festive color palette, and a diffuse but still palpable sense of slapstick theatricality.
One finds these qualities in “The Story of Painting” (2012), a 3D slideshow overlaid with quirky digital doodles and
complemented with audio narration by an amateur art historian on the subject of Impressionist painting – a standin
for something like serious culture. “Framed” by the shadows of small objects placed on the ground between the
projector and the wall (a can of soda, a canvas employed as a sculptural prop), the piece both filters a canonical art
historical reference through a populist lens, and may hint distantly at the work of Baga’s former professor and fellow
Greene Naftali artist Rachel Harrison. Yet the physical environment of the art-school dorm offers a more potent point
of origin for this attitude: A space of semi-precarious existence sometimes used to study, sometimes just to throw parties.
The impression is reinforced by the silent presence in the dark gallery of silhouettes wearing headphones as they
stare at flickering screens, painted beer bottles on the ground, and a white canvas approximating both the physical
volume of a pizza box and the colorful palette of a pie with all the toppings.
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SOCIÉTÉ
Texte zur Kunst n.89, March 2013
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