YouMe, 2005 Ink on paper, 11 x 8.5 inches (28 x 21.5 cm) Emily Mast You & Me Simultaneously Samson Projects is delighted to present Emily Mast's first solo show in the United States. The exhibition, the first solo show ever organized at Samson Projects, includes a variety of media, including video, works on paper, and a participatory installation. Titled "You & Me Simultaneously", the exhibition will explore the process of relationships - that which takes place during the presentation of "me" and its understanding by "you". Central to this exhibition will be the eponymous video. The 11-minute loop features six individuals apparently introducing themselves. They speak intimately to the camera with candor. Their sincerity implies credibility. However, as the speakers' descriptions are often in conflict with their appearances, the viewer's trust deteriorates. Throughout her work, Mast tests the fictions of identity and the process of mis-communication. In fact, the speakers are not profiling themselves, but an individual they claim to know equally well. It is therefore not that the speakers have lied, but rather, that the viewer has not been fully informed. In effect, the viewer becomes implicated in a process of misunderstanding. Her very absence creating a space for negotiating identity, Mast will not install this show nor will she be present in person at any time during the exhibition. A number of works on view will, however, function as explicit sites of self-presentation. Sometimes Mast illustrates herself: her handwriting copied on the wall; her Converse high-tops fixed to the floor for the viewer to try on; instructions to the gallery for the exhibition's layout. Elsewhere, Mast calls upon the identity of the viewer: her handwritten phrase asks you to, "Remember a moment when you felt unlike yourself." At the gallery's entrance you are offered slogan buttons reading "I am unlike anybody else" and "I am just like everybody else". As dual truths ever-influencing the construction of identity, Mast intends for the two slogans to be worn simultaneously. Additionally on view will be ephemera from past projects along with Mast's wine drawings. A series of figures captured in the act of art-viewing, these images tend to echo the very posture of passersby pausing to look at them. Created from the beloved facilitator of social interaction, with age the wine's pigment will continue to transform as do people and their relationships to each other. Mast has chosen to authenticate each drawing by embossing rather than hand-signing her signature, in effect distancing the primacy of her identity. Informed by a process of dialogue and collaboration with others (Liam Gillick is credited for titling this show), Mast frames the truths, preconceptions, deceits and misconceptions volleyed in the process of coming-to-know-another. Mast was born in 1976 in Ohio and currently lives and works in Paris, France and Colima, Mexico. Carly Busta Exhibition: December 2 - 31, 2005 Gallery hours: Tues-Sun 12 - 6 pm and by appointment Samson Projects 450 Harrison Avenue Storefront 63 USA-Boston, MA 02118 Telephone +1 617 357 7177 Fax +1 617 357 5559 Email samson@samsonprojects.com www.samsonprojects.com |
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