DAVID AIPPERSPACH
LEA CETERA
HUGH HAYDEN
GREGORY KALLICHE
CAITLIN MACBRIDE
RYAN MCCARTNEY
PAUL ROUPHAIL
JONATHAN SANTORO
MATT SAVITSKY
MEREDITH SELLERS

PILOT+PROJECTS
JUNE 9 - JULY 6, 2018

BY MIMI CHENG
RESPONSE > PHILADELPHIA, PENNSYLVANIA

Paul Rouphail, Adios, Oil on linen mounted to panel, 2018

During the month of June, my hopes for a languid summer gradually fade into flashes of unbearable heat. The sun intensifies as June seeps into July, and there is a permanent film of sweat on prickly skin. In the age of climate change, my summers have lost their innocence: the heat index is a daily reminder of a global catastrophe that has already arrived.

The Midnight Sun at Pilot+Projects is a show for this new experience of summer. Artist-curators Meredith Sellers and Jonathan Santoro were inspired by a 1961 episode of The Twilight Zone of the same name in which Earth has begun to spiral towards the sun. As society disintegrates, a New York City artist hunkers down in her studio apartment and continues to paint delirious homages to the sun. More direct references to the episode exist, unsurprisingly, as paintings: David Aipperspach recalls the hazy, bleached light of high summer, Paul Rouphail’s canvases echo the slow passing of the afternoon light. Matt Savitsky and Hugh Hayden’s works allude to a more dystopian reality in which the existence of mankind is preserved through fragmented indices.

The Midnight Sun, Paul Rouphail, Jonathan Santoro, Matt Savitsky, Installation view

Gregory Kalliche, Filter Gallery, Portrait oriented HD video with sound, 2015 (video still)

Lea Cetera, Blue Boba Tea, Resin, glass, plastic, 2017

Throughout Sellers and Santoro’s creative partnership, there has always been a deep fascination with the cinematic and animate quality of still, mundane objects, and this show is no different. There are curious moments in which artworks oscillate between object, surface, and support. Savistsky’s stained dress shirt is casually draped over Sellers’s mauve folding screen, and Caitlin MacBride’s painting of rumpled fabric is affixed onto Santoro’s bright yellow shapes. Lea Cetera’s Blue Boba Tea lurks in front of Gregory Kalliche’s video of other hyperreal objects. Ryan McCartney’s Blue Comforter, vaguely reminiscent of optical illusion paintings, looms large over the gallery space. These playful interactions between color and form heighten the visual experience as blues and yellows, paint and pixels vibrate against one another. There are other objects that seem to exist solely to tease. A fuzzy purple puff hangs from a millennial pink “S” curve on the floor, as if Santoro is trying to conjure a cat into existence. Across the way, Aipperspach has painted a large box fan on full blast—it’s too bad that no one can feel its breeze. Summer is here, and there is no escaping the heat.

The Midnight Sun, Installation view

Jonathan Santoro, Midnight Sun Drying Rack, Plywood, MDF, and latex paint, 2018 (with Caitlin MacBride, On The Floor)

According to The Twilight Zone, the only way to cope with imminent disaster is through delusion: the artist’s elderly neighbor pleads for a painting of waterfalls and proceeds to drown herself in its mirage, the artist emerges from a fever dream and mumbles, “Isn’t it wonderful to have darkness…?” In 2018, we sip iced coffee and milky boba to cool our throats even though we know that the plastic straw will someday kill a faraway sea turtle. The Midnight Sun is ultimately about these anxieties that now punctuate our daily lives, and the ways in which we quietly cope. The works are unapologetically, refreshingly beautiful, and on some days, that can be enough.

Mimi Cheng is a PhD student in the Visual and Cultural Studies program at the University of Rochester, where she works on global histories of modern architecture and architectural theory. She has been on the editorial board of the peer-reviewed journal, InVisible Culture, and has written for Title Magazine. In 2016, she was the Writer-in-Residence at Art21/CUE Art Foundation. From 2011-2012, she was the Curatorial and Research Fellow at Slought in Philadelphia. She holds a BFA in Interdisciplinary Sculpture from the Maryland Institute College of Art (MICA).

She is based in Rochester, NY and Philadelphia, PA.

mimicheng.info

Pilot+Projects is a contemporary gallery in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. They have a particular interest in sculptural and collaborative works that pull from humor and weirdness, antagonism, and engages critical theory.

1719 N 5th St, Philadelphia PA, 19122
Exhibitions viewable Sundays 1-4pm and by appointment

pilotprojectspilotprojects.com

RESPONSE
A feature of project reviews experienced in person. Response will provide artists with much needed critical response to their work. Response is opinion-based but is not an op-ed.