the naïve realists: statement
Naïve Realism is the human belief that we see the world around us objectively and that anyone who disagrees with us must be irrational, evil, or stupid. In 2021, we are all Naïve Realists.
When confronted with a “heretic”—defined as anyone on the other side of an argument—we feel entitled to embody the roles of judge, jury and executioner. Intolerance blinds us to the fact that every individual’s perspective is the result of a unique set of lived experiences; ones that come together in an alchemical reaction and give rise to a worldview that is mistaken for the one true reality.
In this new body of work, I present a processing machine that converts life experiences into hardened convictions. I identify the ingredients that go into the making of a worldview—biology, culture, education, environment and value system —and the subjective realities that are the product of those inputs.
For “The Naïve Realists,” I build on a series of wall sculptures I have been creating since 2017. Made of hand-shaped pieces of translucent thermoplastic (an artist grade Shrinky-dink) mounted sideways on birch panels and cubes and trimmed with gold enamel, the sculptures refer to the art of stained glass while imbuing it with a third dimension. Drawing upon my previous experience in haute couture, I employ and embellish dress forms to represent two naïve realists: two people with divergent viewpoints.
Individually, many of the sculptures reference the palette and hard edges of Sol LeWitt. With multiple layers of meaning informing every detail of the installation, I attempt to pay homage to deeply researched works such as Judy Chicago’s “The Dinner Party.”
Installation
The installation consists of three main parts, input/processing/output:
Input
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A constellation of round sculptures on the left wall represents variations on the five categories of life inputs: biology (race, gender, appearance, ability), culture (language, customs, generation), education (access to it, attitudes towards it, rationalism vs. empiricism vs. intuition), environment (abusive or supportive family, war or peace, polluted or clean land and water), and value system (religion or other code of conduct). By turns, cells and DNA sequences, Islamic mosaics and Catholic rose windows, cowboy boots and Nike Air Jordans mingle with pages from Spinoza’s Ethics and the Euclidean geometry of Oliver Byrne. Sliding down to the floor are disks bearing the QAnon snake and maps of oil spills and war zones. They selectively “enter” the hearts of our Naïve Realists through multiple gold threads.
Processing
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Each Naïve Realist is a sculpture made of acrylic and thermoplastic on a vintage papier mâché dress form. Towards the back of the room, one torso is roped to a stake—reminding the viewer of the way we used to burn “witches” or heretics during the Middle Ages—while the other headless torso hangs upside down with a chain. The input threads pass through Venn diagrams over their hearts and emerge through one of two competing cosmologies—heliocentrism or geocentrism—as output threads from their guts.
Output
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On the right wall, the gold output threads lead to one of two divergent worldviews, science versus religion. On one side, a polyptych of square panels forms a large Fibonacci spiral representing a worldview grounded in science and reason. On the other, a religious and mystical paradigm yields squares of Fra Angelico-gilded heavens above and a jumble of Inferno cubes with burning tree stumps, fire and brimstone laid out on the floor.
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