LOS ANGELES — On the sly, Chloe Bass turns the viewer into a poet. Multiform artists quietly persuade us to look at the world as a means of looking within. Her work seems to be both a mirror and a magnifying glass, a foreign object in which a part of herself suddenly appears. Currently, Bass has her two shows running simultaneously in LA. She is Skirball Center and Art + Practice. The latter will be developed into a permanent installation later this year, commissioned by the California African American Museum.
skirball show, title directionsThere are five themed sections of more than 30 different styles of signage throughout Skirball’s outdoor campus. Each sign features text that quietly pokes at the truths you’ve been hiding from yourself, and body-touching images that inspire tenderness for this show, which has toured nationally for years. , Bass added his fifth site-specific section and accompanying audio work.
Originally shared on Instagram, #sky #nofilter: Future America’s Hindsight, A+P, is a multimedia exploration of selected text with shots of clear blue skies leading up to the 2016 presidential election. Bass describes the project as “transforming photographs/texts/lectures/performance scripts/chapbooks into physical artwork, including permanent engravings.” These selections will eventually become her CAAM permanent public installation of 16 glass panels representing her photographs. It has an almost imperceptible hairline engraving evidenced only by the shadow of the text cast on the ground.
I talked with Bass about her work, how I experience it, and how others feel about it. I think the amazing intensity of her work is very disturbing. For example, as she strolls casually through her pleasant garden, truths she has so far actively avoided are unexpectedly mentioned. It can make you feel blind. “Oh my god, always,” she replies. She is petite, characterized by her big eyes and lovely curly hair. Her voice is gentle, soft and her range is a little high. She’s not the one to shut you up, she’s the children’s librarian who teaches you how to read.this is a secret weapon directions‘s audio work. “People listen to me and think [I have] This sweet little voice. So I can say the scariest thing — not mean things, but deep, very challenging things that people legitimately don’t realize until later. ”
By posing questions in his work, Bass asks viewers to acknowledge and clarify their emotional responses. That’s what it means to turn the viewer into a poet. She encourages word exploration. She wants to create an environment where people “feel the need to use language for something painful.” I try to make my work, and I want it to reach emotionally where people are.”
Well, it comes to me confused and a little disheveled. I was shaken by the unexpected therapy session she plunged into me. Like most people, I am disoriented and look for a reference point when the anchor leans into language. While looking at and talking to Bass’s work, his three words repeatedly came to mind: ‘natural’, ‘reverberant’ and ‘pretty’.
Nature
…from Latin natural From “Birth, Nature, Quality” nut– “born” from the verb pearSince the mid-1600s, “nature” has been associated with the world outside human civilization. (etymonline.com)
both directions When #empty #nofilter Involve nature. The former is completely outdoors. The latter consists of an empty recontextualized image. Bass asks what constitutes nature. It feels both essential to her work and challenged by it. She said, “I don’t know Nature Nature as the museum tree grows,” she says. Next, she describes the view from her studio on the 28th floor in New York City: There’s a lot of sky, there’s rivers, there’s skyscrapers, and I have this built-in environment around me, and the sky is part of it, or the context of it. I don’t think it’s been presented or experienced to us inside. ”
But if the natural world has long been omitted in its natural context, how do we know what it is, both in terms of the physical environment and human behavior? Is it natural to entertain the weight of It’s the mind exercise she seems to be adept at delivering. If beaver dams are natural, what about log cabins?
echo
The word echo comes from the Greek ἠχώ (ēchō), derived from ἦχος (ēchos), meaning “sound”. In Greek folklore, Echo is a mountain nymph cursed for her ability to speak, and she can only repeat the last word spoken.(Wikipedia)
Base treats information loss as a biological and social hack.of #empty #nofilterthe text says, “Forgetting is essential to survival.” directions Features a sign that asks, “How much hope has been forgotten?” Skirball is a cultural center that describes itself as “a meeting place guided by the Jewish tradition of welcoming strangers.” Bass is both black and Jewish. It is the identity that causes us to be wary of strangers. “I think it’s kind of important to remember what happened to you,” she says. “But for persecuted identity groups and for those who have experienced historical or contemporary suffering in a really special way, to have a baby, to buy a house, or to do something, give the world a little hope. I think you need to do whatever it takes to show you and people like you that there is a future.”
Echo is the way the past persists in the present. I think these works deal with the reconciliation of past and present, from experience to understanding. The discomfort that the bass stirs up is a resonance of past events and thoughts, a way of acknowledging the echoes fading away.
cute
It first appeared in Old English as “praettig” meaning “crafty or cunning”, based on “praett” meaning “trick”. In the 1400s, it acquired the somewhat flirtatious meaning of “skillful, skilful, capable” and came to be used in the sense of “elegantly made or finished.” Ingenious and artistic. (Word Detective.com)
“Kawaii” is far from its original connotation of deliberate deception. I don’t think the base work is beautiful. I think it’s aesthetically pleasing, weighted in personality, and built on sharply contextualized observations. But she employs beauty as a disarming tool. “I don’t think we get very far by asking people to approach something that can be very painful. Even the approach is threatening,” she explains. “Now I create things that are visually pleasing, or beautiful or precise in a certain way so that I can physically and mentally approach a very complex set of emotions with pleasure. increase.”
Base’s work also explores the concept of cuteness and nature as a kind of performance. #empty #nofilter Display about 200 blank images. Or is it? “These are 192 real blues in the sky, if you like.” They’re kind of 192 digital translations of ideas,” she explains. “These blue photos are a selection of colors that the iPhone 5C translates as sky when there is no other context in the image.” Photos are how the camera reproduces what you see on the screen. has been interpreted by In this case, that’s what Apple’s coders think is beautiful. As Bass told me, “They’re not lies, but I never question that this is fiction.”
At one point Bass tells me: I don’t know that I am always concerned with kindness as part of my art experience. Deep down, despite her emotional insecurities, she feels supported by her efforts: closer to a part of herself, ready to carry rather than drag.The goal may not be to make people feel better, but to make them feel better Become Better. Or just be more honest. #nofilter.
Chloe Bass: Wayfinding It runs through March 12th at the Skirball Cultural Center, 2701 North Sepulveda Boulevard, Bel Air, Los Angeles, California.
#sky #nofilter: Future America’s Hindsight Continues through January 17th at Art + Practice (3401 Degnan Blvd, Leimert Park, Los Angeles, California). The final installation with the California African American Museum is scheduled to be installed in Los Angeles in late 2023. The exhibition was curated by Taylor Renee Aldridge.
The artist will converse with both curators Thurston and Aldridge at CAAM on January 18th. Click here for tickets.
