Katie Merz is one of my bestesses, and also one of my favorite artists (how lucky am I?)
Come and see her solo show in Bushwick. Opens tomorrow night.
FERRO STROUSE GALLERY
presents
a solo show by Katie Merz:
THE UNPLEASABLE ONE / THE BEGINNING OF LANGUAGE
Language is THE UNPLEASABLE ONE, by whom the artist is caged: she presents her work,trying to communicate, but she can’t get out—until she makes… the perfect language. This is THE BEGINNING OF LANGUAGE, with works by Katie Merz (katiemerz.com) in collaboration with renowned author John D’Agata (About a Mountain, The Lifespan of a Fact). Recipients of an Obermann Interdisciplinary Research Grant, Merz and D’Agata worked together over a six-week period in the summer of 2012, living in residency in Iowa City. Collaborating, they riffed off of the works of Plutarch, the ancient Greek oracle and philosopher. D’Agata translated into English Plutarch’s more obscure texts—including a tantalizing dialogue on same-sex love, and a poignant conversation with his wife about how to mourn their dead daughter.
Merz meanwhile developed visual translations of D’Agata’s writing. Wild and witty, her work explores Plutarch’s tales of infanticide, of bloody stumps, of love lost and commemorated—she uses all kinds of media, including board games, videos, written texts, cartoons, pictograms and hieroglyphs, scrolls and sketches, and transferences of hand-drawings into the digital. This exhibition presents Merz’s engagement with D’Agata, featuring, along with the art works,many artifacts of the collaborative process, as well as recordings of conversations between the
artists, as well as D’Agata’s texts. Ferro Strouse Gallery, operated by the artist Maximiliano Ferro and the poet A.W. Strouse, restages the Merz/D’Agata collaboration, re-translating Plutarch and creating an intimate and collaborative experience with you, the viewer: Please come to the Opening Reception, November 8th from 7pm to 9pm. Your participation is needed for the language to begin talking.
Ferro Strouse Gallery
77 Pilling Street, #2
Brooklyn, NY 11207
(L) train to Bushwick Av.-Aberdeen St. Station
(J/Z) trains to Chauncey St. Station
(A/C) trains to Broadway Junction Station
ferro.strouse@gmail.com
(347) 666 • 3438
https://www.ferrostrouse.com
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