I want to announce the opening of the show "Things Fall Apart" at Pool Gallery in Berlin.
I am proud to be of a part a show with so many great American women photographers. It is truly an honor. And an honor to be in a show curated by Amy Stein. Here is the press release! If you are in the neighborhood, please check it and take some snaps of the opening night or of yourself in your favorite piece of lingerie.
The show includes the work of Lisa Kereszi , Stacy Mehrfar , Justine Reyes, Robin Schwartz , Zoe Strauss and Amy Stein . And me too.
Miss Stein and Miss Reyes will be in attendance for the vernissage!
There is one battle, and it is epic. It is the only
battle there has ever been; it is the only battle
there ever will be. It has consumed every last
human being that has ever lived; it is the battle
between Order and Chaos.
Grounded in faith, it is a holy war. Yes, it is the
fight for everything we believe in; the fight for
everything we are; the fight for a reason to get out
of bed in the morning.
Humans naturally side with order, likening it to
survival, yearning for predictability and control.
Over the millennia, we have come up with a range
of ammunition against the great Evil, the great
Darkness - the Chaos. Politics, alien abductions,
savings accounts, religion,
environmental protection, space shuttle
expeditions, hollywood fame, nuclear bombs - it
is a seemingly never-ending roster of human
creations, ideas, practices and bad habits that,
in essence, address this single and only conflict,
attempting to construct a semblance of
permanent order, to grasp some comfort and
stability amidst the chaos.
THINGS FALL APART, curated by American
photographer and pool gallery artist Amy Stein,
presents us with a wise, yet rather distressing,
understanding. It is a coming to terms with our
collective sentence, the hand we, humans, were
dealt; it is the realization that, at the end of the
proverbial day, the chaos prevails.
Stein has selected the works of seven American
female photographers; works that approach this
grand conflict from a humanistic and personal
standpoint. These artists dissect the human
desire to construct our systems of order, and
accentuate the inevitable disillusionment when
© Robin Schwartz
those very systems collapse. The works are more than a record of decay - they are, rather, an examination of loss, as the transition
from the ephemeral to the immutable reveals a cruel affirmation of our temporal existence.
This selection of works simultaneously tells one story: the story of any one life. Lisa Kereszi‘s works serve to highlight the beginning,
the plan-making that excites us in our naive youth and adolescence; Stacy Mehrfar continues from there, capturing the foundationlaying
and construction of our aspirations; Amy Stein‘s own works capture that dreaded moment, that turning point, when chaos first
comes calling, casting our plans off course; the descent from thereon is slow and spiked with flusters, trips and falls apart - a process
illustrated by the works of Justine Reyes, Juliana Beasley and Zoe Strauss; and finally, Robin Schwartz‘ Dead Deer is the summation
of the grand arc, a totem for the constant cycle of dissolution and change in the natural world.
Structuring all facets of our existence is an effort that requires trust in these structures‘ continuation; this trust forms the foundation
of faith. This faith surpasses religious faith; it is the faith that every human being requires to go on living, the most basic and inherent
faith - the faith that what we‘re doing, what we are, is not for nothing. It is the faith that gives us the stamina to go on fighting against
the Chaos.
THINGS FALL APART is Amy Stein‘s first curatorial project at pool gallery, where her work has been exhibited since 2008. She lives
and works in New York, NY.
