The Same Room
Julie Becker, Casey Bolding, Sylvie Hayes-Wallace, Emma Schwartz, Cal Siegel, Madeleine Ray Hines, Sara Yukiko Mon
Shoot the Lobster, New York
2 December 2023–13 January 2024
Before her death in 2016, Julie Becker’s life's work reflected the dilapidated rooms she lived in across Los Angeles. Through sculptural maquettes that resemble her numerous apartments, or as photographs of doll-houses, her series ‘The Same Room’ – which lends its title to this group show – depicts identically composed intersections of interiors. Varying in their decoration from one to the next, each room appears staged, their means of production unclear.
Writer Kirsty Bell wrote that ‘the interior in pragmatic terms is the vessel of experience’. The grouping of works in the exhibition all depict interiors and facades; glimpses into what we leave behind. In Julie Becker's and Sylvie Hayes-Wallace’s, the interiors are empty vessels seemingly devoid of human trace. Philosopher Georges Perec described the habitual aspects of everyday life as ‘infra-ordinary’ – encouraging us to examine our daily lives through various repetitive patterns. Both Becker and Hayes-Wallace recognise the structures which surround these experiences, favouring cool facades rather than the comforts of furniture and belongings. Conversely, in Emma Schwartz's and Casey Bolding’s paintings, there’s a sense of nostalgia, a bed for Schwartz and a chair in Bolding’s play the part of lead protagonists in their thickly ladened compositions.
French philosopher Gaston Bachelard describes the home as ‘our corner of the world’. In Cal Seigel’s sculpture, a chunk of a door and stairwell look plucked from the cellar of a house. The addition of a theatrical stage light constitutes its placement at the centre of the gallery, Siegel’s calculated crop calling to mind the flash-lit intersections in Becker’s work. Both Madeleine Ray Hines and Sara Yukiko-Mon construct their pieces from imagery they source online, Ray Hines painting various Dior shop fronts, while Yukiko Mon’s collages of makeup palettes resemble dressing rooms.
Writer Sabrina Tarasoff noted that Becker ‘retrieved from domestic darkness the miracle of a bright imaginary’. Across the six artists who surround her at Shoot the Lobster, each undertakes a similar search for heightening their familiar thresholds, turning emptiness into a surfeit of potential.
Julie Becker
(b.1972, Los Angeles, California, d. 2016, Los Angeles) was an artist based in Los Angeles. Selected exhibitions include: I must create a Master Piece to Pay the Rent, presented at MoMA PS1, New York (2019) and the Institute of Contemporary Arts, London (2018), Greene Naftali, New York (2016), Seville Biennial, Seville (2006), Sightings, Museum of Contemporary Art, Los Angeles (2003), Greene Naftali, New York (2002), In Sync: Cinema and Sound in the work of Julie Becker and Christian Marclay, Whitney Museum of American Art, New York (2000), Julie Becker: Researchers, Residents, a Place to Rest, Kunsthalle Zurich (1997).
Casey Bolding
(b. 1987, Denver) lives and works in New York City. Selected exhibitions include: Colour of Pomegranates, Mamoth, London (2022), Routine Malfunction, 1969 Gallery, New York (2019).
Sylvie Hayes-Wallace
(b. 1994, Cincinnati, Ohio) lives and works in New York City. Selected exhibitions include: I Hate My Superego, In extenso, Clermont-Ferrand (2023), No Title, Chapter NY, New York (2023), Viscera, Simone Subal, New York (2022), Sylvie Hayes-Wallace, A.D. NYC, New York (2022), Center of the Universe, Bad Water, Knoxville (2022).
Emma Schwartz
(b. 1992, Toronto, Canada) lives and works in New York City. Selected exhibitions include: The Artificial Silk Girl, Brunette Coleman, London (2023), who’s who, In Lieu, Los Angeles (2023), True Alchemy, Thierry Goldberg, New York (2023), only joking, Annarumma Gallery, Naples (2022), Fiction or Fictions, Christian Andersen, Copenhagen (2022), see you in the funny papers, Chapter, New York City (2021).
Cal Siegel
(b. 1987 Massachusetts, USA) lives and works in New York, New York. Selected exhibitions include: Mr. Fool, Deli Gallery, NY (2022), Fine as all Outdoors, Matthew Brown Gallery, LA (2020), I am the box no roof can cover, CUE Art Foundation, New York, NY (2019), Vernacular Interior, Hales Gallery, New York, NY (2019), Double Play, The Pit Presents Left Field Gallery, Los Angeles, CA (2019), The landscape changes 30 times, Anahita Gallery, Tehran, Iran (2015), To do as one would, David Zwirner, New York (2014).
Madeleine Ray Hines
(b. 1988, Chicago) lives and works in New York City. Selected exhibitions include: The Loved Object, Situations, New York (2023), Onder, Diez Gallery, Amsterdam (2022), The Last Day of Disco, Restaurant Projects (2022), Friends with Benefits, Estrella Gallery, New York, (2022).
Sara Yukiko Mon
(b. 1996, San Francisco, California) is a multidisciplinary artist and designer living and working in New York, New York. Selected exhibitions include: 11:11, Gern en Regalia, New York (2022), Pirouette, New York (2022), Two Birds, One Stone, Gern en Regalia, New York (2020), Smiling at a Locomotive, A.D, New York (2022), Trivial Pursuit curated by Daisy Sanchez, Entrance Gallery, New York (2022).
Press
Credits
Images courtesy of Brunette Coleman, London and Shoot the Lobster, New York.
Photography by Stefany Lazar.