front yard
open house
sales tour
Lisa Kirk continues her provocative body of work (what she calls her "series of social occasions"), more recently investigating capitalism, terrorism and political violence, in a dramatic installation, "House of Cards", currently installed at the Lower East Side gallery Invisible-Exports. Although the show opened this past weekend and will continue there through most of March, after that it will take on the second life for which it was conceived.
This time Kirk has re-conceived the story of our contemporary real estate boom and bust in the form of a show model “shanty timeshare” whose structure and interior furnishings have been assembled, in classic (not "classical") style, from discarded materials found in the neighborhood.
An experienced sales staff will be present in the rear of the gallery throughout the run of "House of Cards", and visitors will have the opportunity to buy shares in this "private residence club" featuring all the conveniences which inhabit our current nightmares about home. Upon the show’s completion, the structure will be rebuilt inside a secure, honest-to-goodness gated community located on the edge of one of New York's scenic waterways, where we are told "shareholders will have the opportunity to experience shanty living. After 52 weeks, maison des cartes will be disassembled and distributed to the shareholders as 52 separate and unique artworks," thus promising a more upscale metamorphosis than that permitted most shanties when they are razed.
None of the serious satire (it's not a burlesque) I describe here made this show any less frightening when I visited it with Barry during a preview last week, although the images I'm including here, of happy guests mingling inside these digs, would seem to belie that assertion.
It's pretty scary; and it should be.
The press release announces a second installation, not related to the work on the main floor of the gallery:
Kirk’s shanty will be coupled with an underground installation of her updated project, Revolution (06-09). Last exhibited at P.S.1 Contemporary Art Center, Revolution appeared as a fragrance lab and terrorist headquarters suspended upside-down from the museum’s ceiling.
"sorry about all the torture"
fragrance TV commercial
continuing "Revolution"