Care
curated with Marian Tubbs for Minerva, Sydney
19 June–12 July, 2015
Interstate Projects, Brooklyn, NY
Hany Armanious, Hannah Black, Cameron Crawford, Hamishi Farah and Aurelia Guo, Helen Johnson, Sarah Mosca, Anne Schneider, Stuart Scott Smith
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Cameron Crawford (detail
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Hany Armanious
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Hamishi Farah and Aurelia Guo
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Anne Schneider
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Stuart Scott Smith
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Stuart Scott Smith
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Helen Johnson
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Cameron Crawford (detail)
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Anne Schneider (detail)
I care for those plants because I have watched them grow, I care for you most when you’re sleeping, it’s easier because I don’t have to feel self-conscious of you witnessing my caring.
Philosophically, care lies somewhere between ‘being’ and a cognitive ‘mode of thought,’ presenting itself in humans and animals both as bonds and as conditions. Perhaps there is a gap in philosophy that care does not (could never) fill.
‘Care for the self,’ starting with the Greeks, through Foucault, even through #selfcare, means to come to know oneself through care—a form of self-care that includes within it care for others and the world. Care happens in the bonds between people and things—does the robber care for the stolen, for the owners of those things? Whitehead states, “life is robbery,” that self-enjoyment derives from little trespasses and ethical slips. But then how do I care for myself without causing harm? I am trying to care for others, I am trying to care for myself too.
Is care robbery? I steal your time when you sleep. From the sensitive and material, to the absurd or repellant, this exhibition witnesses love and trespass, the abject sneeze (Armanious), the robber in your hot tub (Johnson), the suggestion the body may not be a collection of parts but an indefinite, unrepresentable haze (Black). The works build from the subject bonding to the object—with grace, they both care and rob.