Compulsory Self-insertion
Compulsory Self-insertion
Chuck Jones
September 9 - October 7, 2017
Chuck Jones made a pair of rubber stamps. The sort that has a mechanism to reload the ink as the graphic end of business rests against the ink pad and then flips down to meet the paper. The first of the pair carries an image of an anus. I ask my students, “what is the sentiment when we stamp something with this image?” The stamp is aggressive, a simple retort of condemnation. The second stamp erases nothing, but changes the game. It carries a graphic of a finger. It could be read as a doubling down; the F you response to the call out, “Asshole!” Most of us end up reading in a whole new way. Suddenly, a familiar explicative is housed in my body. I not only think about it, I can’t help but change my sphincter’s role from usual activities to a completely different part of private. Reminds me why my asshole is considered one of my privates.
Slow happily invites you to a solo affair with Chuck Jones. Chuck is a storyteller fascinated by tangents, unexpected rethinks, and finding new life in the tired familiar. There is something of the freegan in his practice. He gleefully hangs on with both hands to that guttural humor we all found at pubescence. Chuck is crafty, harnessing embroidery, quilting, and glitter. Sometimes he taunts high art. Chuck’s Formalist grid constructions don't create a transcendent encounter; they lull us into passive acceptance. Everything is built on the resultant dream realm encountered by sinking under the covers to feed the monsters we’re keeping under our beds.
