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ARTCAT



Mindy Shapero, The Infinite Truths of Flatterland

CRG Gallery
548 West 22nd Street, 212-229-2766
Chelsea
October 27 - December 9, 2006
Reception: Friday, October 27, 6 - 8 PM
Web Site


Shapero explains that her new works offer explanations or responses to much of what was revealed in her previous works, such as the Circle Traps, which are known to be traps that cause one to become stuck after looking with both eyes into The Blinded By The Light which serves as a talisman against the Furry Eye Sac, which, as its name suggests, rolls around collecting eyes.

Such and more is elaborated on in Shaperos black and white illustrated zines that accompany her work. Shapero manufactures her mythology simultaneously from different points; some of the foundations in her work grow from her writing while others originate more organically in terms of materials and forms developed in the studio. Shaperos process is distinctly non-linear and reciprocal in nature. While her text could be thought of as descriptive or supporting material for her sculptures, the titles of which alone are often a paragraph in length, yet the writing remains dictated by the works as much as the works are derived from it.

The constructed logic within Shaperos world is the sort that is uncontestable, in that it is formed in a closed logical system that abides by its own rules, and where any aberrations of those rules can always be explained by the introduction of new phenomenon. The account of Daniel Paul Schreber’s psychosis or even Freuds theory in itself found advantages in such a positioning, always with an explanation for the lack of empirical proof. This is where Shapero differs however, as she has both the freedom of writing her own theory and the ability to fabricate its evidence in the studio at once. Such is not wholly unlike the textual/visual work of William Blake, which compiles a vast array of borrowed symbols and deities. Shapero herself meanders throughout art history appropriating bits and pieces in the same eclectic manner that she chooses her materials; the large mask-like God Heads seem derived from Greek tragedy. Physically her work is formed from an additive process of layering acrylic paints, resins, silver leaf, and plaster among and endless list of other things.

While much in Shaperos work can be seen as an amalgam of various forms of theism, it is no more so than an adaptation or rewriting of the laws of physics and physiology as well; where much of what functions in her world can serve as direct metaphors or correlations to more mundane but psychologically resonant phenomenon in ours.

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