tableauX

The concept of the fourth wall provides an edge, separation, or threshold of the theatrical from the real by an implied frontal and sequestered orientation. It serves to divide a performance from the audience – spectator vs. spectacle. The device of the tableau evolved from this orientation. It is a performative intensification frozen in time, literally framed by the design of the fourth wall itself. Thus, during the scene of a play there might be an historical event that is reenacted. For example, a result of war crescendos during the heat of a battle, or perhaps a family secret is divulged, or an unplanned civic protest erupts. Think of bodies in motion. Within the most controversial or poignant moment – there is no movement. The audience feels tension…

Yet the tableau also can also be found in another artform – painting. In painting there is an idealized composition that borrows cues from an important event “setting the stage” for a viewer’s empathy, passion, or contemplation. In turn, the tableau in performance brings them to life by “finding that right moment” during a sequence. Between these historical genres, one hand washes the other, both injecting the melodramatic within the real.

However, in the present time of immersive entertainment and social media, one would assume the sensibilities of the tableau, or plural tableaux, are outdated and structurally not applicable. Or are they?

If the tableau put quotations around the real through the introduction of the framed and frozen – what then is today’s smart phone? The most framed genre today is the selfie. There are many dramas, (real and imaginary) that have been, and continue to be captured in that square, 1080 x 1080 - 1:1 aspect ratio of Instagram’s original frame. We frame ourselves to “find that right moment.” Art production today similarly feeds off these moments. In some ways one hand still washes the other. Most artists consider the smart phone as a tool to effectively reveal something in their work – framing a detail, a context, or a body to allow for a different kind of mediation that one might not have in person.

The group exhibition tableauX is conceptually positioned between the original and the new. Consisting entirely of analog sculpture, “scenes” are preferred to “installations.” The scenes utilize pairings of artists and works chosen. The symmetrical layout of each scene invites the viewers to break the fourth wall without compromising the distinctions of each. Finally, selfies and other recordings are encouraged…

Participating Artists
…
Elba Bairon
Loris Cecchini
Hernán Dompé
Clemencia Labin
Gye Hoon Park
Alex Trimino
Xawery Wolski