How (Not) To Paint (2020)
latex paint, laser cut wood, paint tray, paint roller, paint brushes, ceramic mug, wire, fishing line, ice, knife, screws, nails, slide projector, colored gel, matte board, motion sensor

To start the Spring semester, I had my graduate students break into small groups and curate exhibitions of objects. To push them out of their comfort zones I made a deck of “Exhibition Interventions” cards. Each group chose 3 interventions at random and were to incorporate them into their exhibition.

I made an exhibition along with them and chose the following 5 interventions: include a set of instructions, use electricity (beyond gallery lighting), include a mark made directly on the wall, something in your exhibition is placed directly on the floor, and use color in the the presentation of the curated items. How (Not) to Paint is the resulting exhibition. It was made almost entirely from items I found scattered throughout the MFA program and was presented on a wall across from the main critique space (where the students had their exhibitions). When someone walked in front of the installation, a motion sensor turned on a slide projector, which projected the word “NOT” in the middle of “How To Paint.”

One of the found objects was a paintbrush I found in a freezer. I froze that paint brush in a column of ice, which quickly melted. All the water dropped into the ceramic mug hanging on the wall below it.