Daphne Fitzpatrick’s practice is rooted in the historical and aesthetic concerns of the flâneur, the 19th century literary figure traditionally pictured as a dandy gentleman wandering the city streets. The flâneur defines themselves in opposition to the speed, production, and values of modern urban life, stubbornly engaged in cultivating a refined aesthetic position dedicated to appropriating the overlooked and marginalized aspects of the urban landscape. For example, the flâneur’s contemporary stance is romantically symbolized with an oversized photograph of worn high-top sneakers—the sexless wearer brazenly displaying the mark of urban travels.

Fitzpatrick conflates a hobo sensibility with the care and attention of fine craftsmanship. Whether appropriated, foraged, or recreated, each of her works connects back to experiences within an ever-changing urban environment. Fitzpatrick combines appropriated images, found objects, photographs, sculpture, and video, building complex narratives littered with banal joke shop humor, sexual puns and perverse poetry. As Helen Molesworth wrote, Daphne Fitzpatrick is “reimagining…the commodity as a kind of Surrealist-inflected game piece…[she] uses the castoffs of spectacle culture to create delicate, Lilliputian tableaux inflected with visual puns” [1].

Fitzpatrick has set apart the gallery space for her exhibition with a wooden entry ramp, compelling her viewers to not only slow down to enter her realm, but engage in a delicate rollercoaster, climbing, then dropping back down to proceed through the exhibition. Just as one is physically willed to ease into Fitzpatrick’s laissez-faire world, the pace of the entire exhibition draws from Fitzpatrick’s meandering film, “Broadway”, found hidden behind a dilapidated wall of construction fencing festooned with silk-screened drawings. Shot during a six day walk down the length of the Manhattan throughway, the camera languidly takes in whatever piques Fitzpatrick’s interest—fountains gush, products slowly turn behind store windows, and fragments of body parts both real and implied stream by. A rough hewn wood bar/shelf showcases gradually larger candlesticks, cast sausages are mysteriously thread through an empty glass bottle, a battered floor sets off a tangle of flag and metal, and a knothole in a construction fence provides the key to a jumble of treasured objects. The crude and abject are handled with loving attention and offer the viewer an experience not unlike the best forms of slapstick comedy, where unlikely objects and ideas collide.

“A Roll In The Hay” is Fitzpatrick’s first solo exhibition. Daphne Fitzpatrick has been included in key group exhibitions at LACE, Los Angeles, the Center on Contemporary Art, Seattle, and Brent Sikkema, New York and Future 86. Fitzpatrick is on the faculty of the sculpture department at Yale University.

[1] Molesworth, Helen, “Worlds Apart”, Artforum, May 2007, XLV. No. 9, p. 102