I'm bummed to miss it but "While You Wait," a group show organized by Brian Dupont in Extra Gallery, his Chelsea art firm's expropriated lobby is opening right now. [Spoiler alert on the venue's lobbyness? I can't quite tell, but I figure it's clear from the show's press release.]
Anyway, after Brian invited me, I was trying to figure out what I might do, and saw this image of the building--and the space's window--on Google Street View. And then it was obvious.
I'll write some more about the piece later; right now I've got to pick up the kid from riding lessons. I mean, proletariat lessons.
OK, comrades, I'm back. Basically, Google Street View is increasingly the first impression, the reference point, even the authority of sorts, for the new places we go in the physical world. In Extra's case, the distinguishing feature of its unassuming architecture is the mismatched seam Street View gave it. Untitled [Extra Street View] is an attempt to approximate that digital reality in the physical experience of the building, to sort of sketch it into the space. Or maybe to capture it in one spot--the window--or one perspective, from inside the place you've just traveled to, looking back toward the pano-mapped street. It's like a shot reverse shot between the viewer and the Google cam.
