SO IT GOES
Kristen Morgin
August 30 – September 30, 2016
co-curated with Tim Berg
About the Exhibition
In his dark comic masterpiece Slaughterhouse Five, Kurt Vonnegut’s unreliable narrator depicts a world where time is plastic and destruction is inescapable. Vonnegut employs the common idiom So it goes innumerable times throughout the novel as a stoic reminder of the absurdity and inevitability of death.
In her exhibition SO IT GOES, Kristen Morgin acts as her own unreliable narrator, assembling unfired clay and paint, prized collections, studio detritus, drawings and other random bits and bobs of uncertain heritage into a gritty and exuberant installation. Morgin’s light and unaffected touch reveals an unselfconscious attitude that belies the gravity of her concerns. Kitsch, with its authentically inauthentic airs, commands a central role here, reminding the viewer how cultural iconography dominates our memories, less nostalgic and more hegemonic, inevitable and absurd as death.
- Tim Berg, co-curator
About the Exhibition
In his dark comic masterpiece Slaughterhouse Five, Kurt Vonnegut’s unreliable narrator depicts a world where time is plastic and destruction is inescapable. Vonnegut employs the common idiom So it goes innumerable times throughout the novel as a stoic reminder of the absurdity and inevitability of death.
In her exhibition SO IT GOES, Kristen Morgin acts as her own unreliable narrator, assembling unfired clay and paint, prized collections, studio detritus, drawings and other random bits and bobs of uncertain heritage into a gritty and exuberant installation. Morgin’s light and unaffected touch reveals an unselfconscious attitude that belies the gravity of her concerns. Kitsch, with its authentically inauthentic airs, commands a central role here, reminding the viewer how cultural iconography dominates our memories, less nostalgic and more hegemonic, inevitable and absurd as death.
—Tim Berg, co-curator
About the Artist
Kristen Morgin “Objects have in them the histories of the people who owned them. That juju stays with objects. I am interested in recreating objects and their juju. Initially, when I began making my personal books, toys, and brick-a-brack I think I wanted to see what it would look like. I wanted it to be apparent that these were things that I made and that they were made out of clay. Over time, I have become more interested in recreating objects as precisely as I can. I find that this attention to minute details is a kind of homage to the original objects. I am interested in making cast off objects from estate sales, brick-a-brac, used books and records as well as unremarkable objects like bits of cardboard, pencil stubs, used paint cans and pieces of scrap plywood. I have found that crafting these objects skillfully and carefully gives them a value that they wouldn’t otherwise have.”