putting on a show!
Claire Gustavson
VideoSeptember 25 – October 4, 2014
Claire Gustavson’s sculpture and videos are reveries of total control snuggled into a hyper-consumable, semi-twee aesthetic. Her works explore banality by creating a world where boredom is transcendent and consumerism creates a pathway to agency. As a performer within the work, Gustavson hollows out power positions so that they are less threatening. Since she makes the rules, otherwise inaccessible roles are now attainable.
putting on a show! is a non-competitive dog show. The performance space borrows from fashion, athletics and mass-produced furniture to facilitate a more complex discussion of aesthetics and control. The framework of the dog show is a surface structure that is part fantasy, part struggle.
About the Artist
Claire Gustavson works primarily in video and sculpture. She studied at Carnegie Mellon University and lives and works in Brooklyn. Claire likes dogs, pastels and shopping at IKEA.