Reviews
Ulrich Project Series: Josephine Durkin
Josephine Durkin's small show in the Ulrich Museum's Project Series delivers a fair amount of punch in the three works she created for the space. While potentially not a show for the technophobic, Durkin's work maintains elements of beauty and whimsy that can be lost in some new-media heavy shows, serving as an entry point to her work for any viewer.
The viewer is an integral part of Durkin's work, and participation is key in the most successful and anchoring of the shows pieces: Bloom (I knew I loved you when).
The wall text for the piece invites the viewer to sit down and invite another guest to sit with them. The piece, visual, is beautiful but the true beauty of the piece happens in that moment when two museum visitors who may have never met before sit down on the love seat, causing the umbrellas on the suitcases to close and bloom, suggesting some deeper connection between the two viewers. But eventually one of the viewers will be ready to move on and as they leave the motion stops and the connection is broken.
At moments you feel as though you've stepped onto a set for a music video, helped by the fact that the two other pieces rely heavily on audio and video elements.The pieces in the show are both sad and sweet, but never saccharine, as they ask us to question our relationships to those around us.
This exhibit opened January 12, 2008 and is open through April 27, 2008 at the Ulrich Museum of Art on the Wichita State University campus in Wichita, KS.
The viewer is an integral part of Durkin's work, and participation is key in the most successful and anchoring of the shows pieces: Bloom (I knew I loved you when).
The wall text for the piece invites the viewer to sit down and invite another guest to sit with them. The piece, visual, is beautiful but the true beauty of the piece happens in that moment when two museum visitors who may have never met before sit down on the love seat, causing the umbrellas on the suitcases to close and bloom, suggesting some deeper connection between the two viewers. But eventually one of the viewers will be ready to move on and as they leave the motion stops and the connection is broken.
At moments you feel as though you've stepped onto a set for a music video, helped by the fact that the two other pieces rely heavily on audio and video elements.The pieces in the show are both sad and sweet, but never saccharine, as they ask us to question our relationships to those around us.
This exhibit opened January 12, 2008 and is open through April 27, 2008 at the Ulrich Museum of Art on the Wichita State University campus in Wichita, KS.
Tags: durkin, interaction, relationships, ulrich
