Jacolby Satterwhite’s exhibition You’re at Home, currently on view at Pioneer Works in Brooklyn, takes viewers on an uncanny journey through an alien environment. The large gallery space is covered in bizarre videos in which the artist eerily superimposes animations over natural elements — figures dancing, drumming, and even dangling writhe throughout the large warehouse.
 |
| Photo courtesy of pioneerworks.org |
In one video, Satterwhite himself is suspended by his ankles above the ground while figures in white hazmat suits appear to whip him. Upon further viewing, the audience may begin to realize that the figures clad in white are in fact covering the artist in paint, but the initial impression the video leaves is quite disturbing. Small picture frames line the gallery walls, displaying more of the artist’s odd videos rather than the typical family photos which may have previously resided in the frames, further contributing to the space’s alien ambiance.
 |
| Photo courtesy of pioneerworks.org |
The entire exhibition adopts this jarring atmosphere; virtual reality headsets allow gallery visitors to fully immerse themselves in Satterwhite’s macabre universe — an immensely disconcerting activity. Every work of art in You’re at Home seems to refute the exhibition’s title, highlighting the disastrous state of today’s world in which we are somehow still able to feel ‘at home.’ By melding typical domestic objects such as picture frames and disco balls with perplexing, often times disturbing video footage, Satterwhite forces observers to recognize the fact that our ‘home,’ our earth and our society, is in distress.
Hi Abby!
ReplyDeleteI think you really captured the eerie, disturbing quality of the exhibition and there is some really good description here.
Is there any reason you didn't mention anything about the artist's mother or the side room with her drawings in it?
Also, I wonder if you could expand a little more on how busy and overwhelming it felt with the really loud sounds/music and the crazy colors and patterns.
Finally, the following sentence is a bit confusing: "...the artist eerily superimposes animations over natural elements — figures dancing, drumming, and even dangling writhe throughout the large warehouse."
It sounds like you are making a list of the natural elements, so that the "figures dancing" and the "drumming" and the "even dangling writhe" are separate objects or something. It also is unclear if the "large warehouse" is a space that is being depicted on screen in the films or if it is referring to the actual physical exhibition space. How can you make it clear that they are figures dancing, drumming, and writhing on screen, rather than real figures in the exhibition space?
Caito