What are you afraid of?

Does the sight of a fuzzy spi­der swiftly cross­ing your path make the hairs on the back of your neck stand up? Would you walk up five flights of stairs before you’d get into a rick­ety ele­va­tor? What about 20 flights? Do you run from fear or stay and fight? For some artists, con­fronting the empti­ness of a new can­vas trig­gers famil­iar phys­i­cal sen­sa­tions – fight-​or-​flight responses. Group show Ffp: Fuck Fear Pho­bia, open till Novem­ber 3, asked a group of artists to inter­pret fear and pho­bia, and the results present view­ers with oppor­tu­ni­ties to explore the top­ics for them­selves through a mul­ti­sen­sory expe­ri­ence com­pris­ing mixed-​media, paint­ing, sculp­tural, and video-​installation works.

Work­ing with Wolf & Daugh­ter Pro­duc­tions, Ffp cura­tor Natalie Trainor cre­ated an envi­ron­ment for the seven artists’ work in a loca­tion that, well, fits the theme – a creepy old com­mis­sary in New York’s Meat­pack­ing Dis­trict. Speak­ing of artists John Breiner, Day Le, Joseph Grazi, LNY, Biz Lynch, Miguel Ovalle and Danielle Riech­ers, Trainor says, “I knew the styles and energy of the artists involved would cre­ate an impres­sive instal­la­tion and col­lab­o­ra­tion would be easy. I trusted their work as artists.”

Natalie Trainor answered a few ques­tions for Curbs & Stoops about Ffp: Fuck Fear Pho­bia–and her own fears.

Robin Grear­son: How did you choose the artists whose work would develop your Ffp theme?

Natalie Trainor:The show has been in the works for sev­eral months and select­ing the artists has hap­pened almost organ­i­cally. The art world is small and all of the artists involved are part of my close social net­work. Some of the artists I’ve known before the con­cept of the show was born, and, oth­ers, after.

RG: What most inter­ested you in how the artists explored these sub­jects, what artist or work sur­prised you, and how?

NT: Each artist approached and explored the theme from such dif­fer­ent angles – – I found this the most inter­est­ing. The only work that [lit­er­ally] sur­prised me was LNY’s, as I really had no idea what he was going to do for his large-​scale draw­ing. It is a beau­ti­ful piece: a veiled woman cov­er­ing her face as gas fumes creep up the wall towards her. His work pulls the viewer into the space, but also makes them uneasy, which is per­fect for the theme of the show.

Joseph Grazi’s “Leg­ends” is made up of 130 taxi­dermed bats in the shape of bat symbol…the response to this is inter­est­ing, as some peo­ple love it and oth­ers are totally grossed out. Per­son­ally, I’ve grown to appre­ci­ate the beauty of the bats’ fig­ures rather than be appalled.

Danielle Riech­ers’ video, “Heavy Con­science” is an exam­ple of a piece in the show in which the artist pushed them­selves to the extreme. The video is a doc­u­men­ta­tion of a per­for­mance where she melts an ice fig­ure on her bare body until it dis­si­pates entirely. The fig­ure, which the artist carved with a chain saw and chisel, rep­re­sents a woman that she almost killed in a car acci­dent sev­eral years ago. Through­out the video Danielle cra­dles the ice fig­ure like the Vir­gin Mary hold­ing her son in the Pietà, assum­ing a posi­tion of tak­ing on the bur­den of the weight and pain of the body in her arms. Being at the actual performance/​film­ing I was part of the expe­ri­ence and saw her suf­fer­ing first­hand – – this suf­fer­ing trans­lates in the video, as the viewer feels it, too.

Miguel Ovalle’s newest series explores the fear of one­self, as he uses frag­mented mir­rors to dis­tort the viewer’s reflec­tion. The metic­u­lous detail of his abstract con­cept and exe­cu­tion is impressive.

Like Miguel, Day Le’s work is abstract com­pared with oth­ers within the show. Using yarn as his choice of mate­r­ial, he breaks down the fear of color to the fear of lan­guage, in which the fear of lan­guage is fur­ther bro­ken down into basic shapes – – yarn sculp­tures cov­ered in resin and also a web instal­la­tion the audi­ence has to walk around and through.

John Breiner’s highly detailed draw­ings present surprises…the closer you look, the more the dark sub­ject mat­ter pulls you in to each one of his paintings.

Using sound as a medium, Biz Lynch takes a sci­en­tific approach to com­bat­ting fear by dis­ori­ent­ing the senses and invit­ing exploration.

RG: What made you per­son­ally want to explore these subjects?

NT: The theme of the show actu­ally came to be after talk­ing to Joseph Grazi about his piece, “Leg­ends,” when the bats were only an idea. I remem­ber think­ing how creepy the taxi­dermed bat was when I held it in my hand. He had them shipped in from all over the world, and the one I was hold­ing came from Thai­land or some coun­try in south­east Asia, I can’t remem­ber explic­itly, but I do remem­ber say­ing, “Omg there can be dis­eases attached to these things,” and really being afraid. This planted the seed in my head, and the show grew from there.

RG: What are your own fears or pho­bias, or those that you’re will­ing to share?

NT: It’s a pretty generic fear, but I fear los­ing the peo­ple I love in my life.

RG: Did you have to con­front any of your fears while producing/​curating the show?

NT: Well, on Sat­ur­day I fell off one of the lad­ders while turn­ing on one of the pro­jec­tors. It was a bad fall, and I have mas­sive bruises to show for it. There is this high wooden struc­ture that the pro­jec­tor stand was built on, 12 feet. I guess I’m kinda ner­vous to use the lad­der again, at least I refuse until the show is over. So, maybe?

RG: Do you have any other upcom­ing cura­to­r­ial projects?

NT: The next project I am work­ing on is a Salon Series, which will be pri­vate, more exclu­sive events of per­for­mances and instal­la­tions that con­cen­trate more on cre­at­ing art than exhibit­ing it. The first of the series is titled Eleven Cubed: Pri­mal Beings, an instal­la­tion and per­for­mance by the artist Anne Grauso. It will take place on 11.11.11.

Ffp: Fuck Fear Pho­bia
406 W. 13^th Street (@ 9^th Ave)
open through Novem­ber 3
clos­ing recep­tion:
Wednes­day, Novem­ber 2, 6 – 8 PM

LNY and Joseph Grazi pho­tos by Luisa Con­lon. Other pho­tos cour­tesy of the artists. 

Tags: Biz Lynch, collaboration, crossing, Day Le, elevator, environment, Joseph Grazie, multisensory, Natalie Trainor, sculptural

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This entry was posted on Tuesday, November 1st, 2011 at 12:26 pm and is filed under Art.
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