LIVING ROOM
A curious metal contraption, part of David Schafer’s Model for Wild Harmony, dominates the front of the gallery; it’s essentially a three-rung ladder leading to a circular platform suspended above the floor by means of cables and painted steel beams. Both a wall label and a sticker attached to the ladder advise, “At their own risk, viewers are encouraged to climb the ladder with caution.” In addition, hanging above the platform there’s a convex mirror on which the word “DINGDONG” has been etched, and on a nearby wall there’s a large upside-down squirrel drawn with blue sign paint.
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There are several sphinxes in Sphinx/”PORES”: the speaker, whose identity and reason for telling the story aren’t clear; the viewer, who isn’t called upon to do much but look at the blank gray walls and listen; and most of all the unidentified woman, about whom we learn very little. Was she pressured into having the toe removed? How did the surgeries, corrective shoes, braces, and finally a wheelchair affect her life? What are her thoughts about asymmetry and balance? The speaker in Sphinx/”PORES” sounds authoritative, yet he offers only a frustrating fragment and then leaves us stranded; as we listen we experience firsthand the kind of alienation and lack of communication only hinted at in Fredrickson’s Shared Views.
