Mise En Place
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By Leslie Kelman
May 12 - 30, 2014
Open hours:
Environment will be on view Mondays through Wednesdays and Fridays (Closed Thursdays, Saturdays and Sundays)
Performances: Every Monday, Wednesday and Friday from 12 - 4 pm and on Tuesdays from 10 - 2 pm
(NO PERFORMANCE on Tuesday, May 13th)
chashama 266
266 West 37th Street
New York, NY
This exhibition depicts a human environment on display for passersby to observe, diorama-like, as though it were an exhibit in a museum or zoo. The shelter, constructed inside a vacant storefront, mimics certain elements of an average domicile, but reduced to the dimensions of a crawlspace. This simple shelter provides physical protection but no privacy as it faces the street.
The human animal in this exhibit, “L,” can be observed going about its daily activities. As L moves in slow motion within the makeshift home, it attempts to analyze its personal identity using cues provided by a cryptic wall text – a nonsensical bureaucratic form that asks its subject to account for itself in terms that are both intrusive and generic. L performs personal examinations, opens an endless stream of mail, and changes appearance repeatedly in an attempt to obfuscate its gender, though the form on the wall insists on being given this information.
The French phrase “mise en place” (“put in place”) is used by restaurant servers (among others) in reference to the orderly placement of silverware set for each course. It suggests preparedness, organization and continuous repetition of a task that is associated with something necessary – eating – but is not in itself necessary – social propriety. In the context of this piece, mise en place references the human animal attempting to account for itself using the tools its society has provided, trying to achieve order and self-definition while doubting the value of such clarity.
Leslie Kelman spent her childhood in British Columbia and her adult life in Minneapolis. She is a student in Hunter College’s MFA program and explores human shelter and quotidian activity, employing construction and performance as means to that end.
For more information please visit lesliekelman.com
By Leslie Kelman
May 12 - 30, 2014
Open hours:
Environment will be on view Mondays through Wednesdays and Fridays (Closed Thursdays, Saturdays and Sundays)
Performances: Every Monday, Wednesday and Friday from 12 - 4 pm and on Tuesdays from 10 - 2 pm
(NO PERFORMANCE on Tuesday, May 13th)
chashama 266
266 West 37th Street
New York, NY
This exhibition depicts a human environment on display for passersby to observe, diorama-like, as though it were an exhibit in a museum or zoo. The shelter, constructed inside a vacant storefront, mimics certain elements of an average domicile, but reduced to the dimensions of a crawlspace. This simple shelter provides physical protection but no privacy as it faces the street.
The human animal in this exhibit, “L,” can be observed going about its daily activities. As L moves in slow motion within the makeshift home, it attempts to analyze its personal identity using cues provided by a cryptic wall text – a nonsensical bureaucratic form that asks its subject to account for itself in terms that are both intrusive and generic. L performs personal examinations, opens an endless stream of mail, and changes appearance repeatedly in an attempt to obfuscate its gender, though the form on the wall insists on being given this information.
The French phrase “mise en place” (“put in place”) is used by restaurant servers (among others) in reference to the orderly placement of silverware set for each course. It suggests preparedness, organization and continuous repetition of a task that is associated with something necessary – eating – but is not in itself necessary – social propriety. In the context of this piece, mise en place references the human animal attempting to account for itself using the tools its society has provided, trying to achieve order and self-definition while doubting the value of such clarity.
Leslie Kelman spent her childhood in British Columbia and her adult life in Minneapolis. She is a student in Hunter College’s MFA program and explores human shelter and quotidian activity, employing construction and performance as means to that end.
For more information please visit lesliekelman.com
