I imagine the artist saying something to us like "this makes me want to "throw up."" Whatever ill inside (domestic, bodily or otherwise) has to come out. The results (art?), are something like a gag from Spencer's gifts. The ideas, throwing up a sign, a structure, bodily fluid somehow all revolve around what has to come out, a rejection presented as abjection. I really like the roots of this exhibition. It was a place squatted by the artist, an attempt to occupy and improve its conditions through artistic intervention. Unfortunately, never having seen the place firsthand, the entire project, its political imbroglio, and its reverberation in an art gallery context "proper" all leave me with images of potentially mythical proportions. (You'd have to read elsewhere to get the whole background). What does seem clear to me is that often the "overhead" seems oppressive and unattainable though there are occasional bright spots (colorful sprays, playfully childlike beacons of light et al) that leak through. I guess this notion works for me in terms of domesticity (both motherhood in Olga's case and national politics more generally); frustrations of an overbuilt housing market; and the representative domiciles as better left dead (or at least in the hands of business acumen) than occupied by anything that artistic invention/intervention could possibly attain. This project points directly to what's wrong. I just wish it had proposed a next solution rather than the perennial question of artistic futility in social terms. What does it mean to be "sick" of something yet unable to affect the results directly? Sounds like business as usual all the way around... (and the best part is that I'm still thinking about it).
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