Resource | Jackson Hole, Wyoming
January 18, 2018

Holiday Forever is an artist run space in Jackson Hole, Wyoming. They invite an artist to join them in Wyoming, and this artist in turn invites another. They come together for two person exhibitions based out of the home gallery. Studio space on site and recreation and vacation opportunities in surrounding areas and national parks are available to these artists during their time in the cowboy state.

Miserere PARAPHRASE
Ivana Basic & Bradford Kessler

February 11 - March 27, 2017

3. THE SET
Curated by Jackie Im and Aaron Harbour of Et. al.

April 7 - May 4, 2017

Jacky Connolly
Austin English
Koak
Adriana Lara
Bryan Morello

In a plain white box as if the inside of a sugar cube could be entered, crystalline; the white of a city made of salt you read about once. Or else somewhat less so, mostly-white, a window here and there, a grey or wooden floor, a desk etc. mar the scene but not irreconcilably so. The walls are not each of the same dimensions, the ceiling is variegated, the light shines unevenly across it all. Or else either of the prior states is augmented – walls are papered, carpet is laid down, lighting is adjusted or turned off altogether. Or else the walls are foregone – the play is outdoors in sand or snow or woods. Or maybe we’re in the round: an operating theatre, no partitions, props maybe, audience on all sides, care needed to avoid eye contact across so evenly distributed a fourth wall.

The Hacienda
Matt Taber & Scott Nadeau

June 4 - July 12, 2017

How it Unfolds
Martha Mysko & Willie Wayne Smith

July 21 - September 1, 2017

In the early morning there are six figures in a motel parking lot, truck stop, or some similar transitory space. A bearded man with long unwashed hair stares fixedly beyond what is visible to us. He is wearing a child's wooden rosary on top of his extra large, brightly colored, polyester button-up shirt. In his left hand he is holding an old aluminum flashlight from which an ordinary key dangles from a string. On his bicep is a tattoo that can't be made out. In his right hand he is holding a book which has fallen open, allowing some sum of money to fall from its pages and brush past his pleated slacks. The man is only wearing one loafer, the other foot is bare and his big toe is massaging a worm. His discarded sock has landed near a discarded beer can, guarded closely by a large iguana.

Another individual with wiry hair wears shorts and a t-shirt. He is contorted into a strange yoga-like pose as he shovels dirt onto a half-submerged Nike box. His own shoes are sensible. A short haired woman in a tight dress, jewelry, and heels is consoling him.

Nearby, in the sparse grass are an innocuous roller suitcase, an abandoned carousel horse figurine, and a standard public trash can. On the pavement beyond the grass, a long haired
companion looks on from the driver's seat of a small box truck. On top of the truck, a shirtless child gazes into the woods beyond the lot. In the distance we can make out a small dog and
a truck driver loitering by his cab. A mysterious tower looms in the distance. I feel compelled to mention that there is also a mountain although it is not depicted.

In a home nearby, the dominant decorative motif is floral. The woman who lives there has plans. How it unfolds is how it unfolds. Sometimes we do not get the full story. Sometimes, it becomes defaced in its subjective telling. Sometimes it becomes defaced in its subjective being heard. Sometimes our plans get interrupted.

Morning People
Andrea McGinty & Ben Dowell

September 8 - November 1, 2017

“I can’t describe it. What I’m feeling and what I'm thinking. This means something. This is important.”
-Roy Neary (Richard Dreyfuss), Close Encounters of the Third Kind, 1977

Morning People by Ben Dowell and Andrea McGinty utilizes the inherent narrative qualities of Holiday Forever’s domestic space. Dowell and McGinty have selected works to form a makeshift museum of the everyday. The installation projects a psychological longing for an abstract experience and transcendence through familiar forms. Navigating the language of marketing, simultaneously compassionate and alienating, the work sifts through mass production to find personal expression. The title, playing on the phonetic, alludes to a sinisterness that lies just under the surface, but without an abandonment of the optimistic mantras of contemporary life. It's a snapshot of an esoteric existence in which the protagonist acts as both the creator and interpreter of seemingly spiritual objects.

Menschebretter Almanac
Rebecca R. Peel & Dennis Witkin

December 12, 2017 - January 17, 2018

2017 / 1438 / 5777 / 3102 / 2770 / 1466 / 6767 / 1424 / 1379 / 2561 / 7525 / 4713 / 1733 / 3183 / 12017 / 1395 / 4350 / 549 / 106 / 2144 / 1483228800

1.A. – Subject A is on one side of a raging river. There are no bridges. There is no boat. Subject A shouts out to Subject B on the opposite bank. “How do I get to the other side?” Subject B shouts back: “You are on the other side.”

2. C. – He put a small black bitter-tasting pellet on my tongue. I gagged. Brother Martin held my jaws shut and stroked my throat until I swallowed it. After a while, the pain in my wounds lessened. I leaned back on the mattress. And I dropped off to sleep like a rock off the edge of a precipice.

5.D. – The animistic sign of the primitive, then, is summoned in the very act of precise documentation that supposedly inaugurates rationality. The anxiety that the Real will be eaten up by the spectre of the primitive returns in the image.

7.E. – ♪ So you children of the world / listen to what I say / If you want a better place to live in / spread the words today / Show the world that love is still alive / you must be brave / Or you children of today are / Children of the grave ♪

9.B. – Now when he was not hindering her, she knew what to do, and without looking at what was under her feet, and to her vexation stumbling over a high stump into the water, but righting herself with her strong, supple legs, she began making the circle which was to make all clear to her. She stood still, feeling more and more conscious of it, and enjoying it in anticipation.

12.F. – “If you want to see me with your own eyes, go to the Natural History Museum in Bern. There you will see my stuffed body in a glass case. I apologize in advance for my appearance. They repaired me and patched me and added fur and stuffing in 1923, raising my head to show me in a less humble pose. In spite of all their efforts, I no longer look very much like myself."

All images courtesy of Holiday Forever.

Holiday Forever
10 E Simpson Avenue
P.O. Box 4472
Jackson Hole, Wyoming

Contact
holidayforevergallery@gmail.com
(307) 622-4888 
@holidayforevergallery

RESOURCE
A posting of any length based primarily on submissions but also compiled through research by The Rib. Resource shares press releases, exhibition details, photo essays, interviews, podcasts, and other original content generated by galleries or alternative sources. Resource establishes a critical dialogue or discourse for artists and institutions by simply sharing information in a network connecting networks.