Project Total Yang: Hanging Fresco

Project Total Yang borrows its title from the whimsical notion, voiced by a character in David Foster Wallace’s fiction, that one way of resolving the self/other problem of existence is to pursue the minimization of Other by maximizing Self. The project posits artistic cannibalism as a form of personal and creative evolution. The gap to be filled, here, is caused by the initial dismantling of earlier works, which are then recombined and incorporated with a growing array of materials and repurposed found objects. The resulting pieces introduce fragments of previous works mixed with industrial materials and mounting strategies referencing museum display and conservation practices. To the material connotations of rigidity, seduction, and memory, I add a confrontation of internal and external positions, manipulating force and fragility as coordinates for an objectual encounter. Hanging Fresco I & II integrate fragments of Hanging Fresco, a fresco sculpture whose destruction was documented in the video My Cannibal.

My Cannibal documents the failed attempt to destroy my fresco sculpture, Hanging Indent. It positions the process in parallel to the destructively erotic relationship between the two protagonists in Ingmar Bergman’s film Persona. The video sounds a desultory call-and-response interchange drawn from the film’s monologic dialogue between the active character and the mute subject that she wants to claim and become. I read the text opposite the mute sculpture, enacting a scene of mutually constituted characters. The double is something to be eaten, or something to be demolished.

Hanging Fresco I

2016-2018
Dibond (aluminum and polyethylene composite), throwing javelin, sculpture remnant, wood, aluminum, cord, lightbulb; Hanging Man fragment: fresco over foam
66 in x 72 in x 96 in

Hanging Fresco II: Coil of the hotplate starting to glow

2016-2018
Dibond, throwing javelin, sculpture remnant, aluminum, cord, lightbulb, wall; Hanging Man fragment: fresco over foam, steel
40 in x 36 in x 86 in