"The title, Blow Both of Us, comes from a photograph by Mark Morrisroe (of himself and Gail Thacker), which was also used as the title of Pat Hearn's first exhibition in her Boston loft in 1980 including the work of her friends, Morrisroe and Thacker. The image of Mark and Gail (shot in 1978 and reprinted in 1986) is a touchstone for much of the work included in the exhibition. It starts a lineage of interconnections that is bound by friendship and the role that photography has played within those friendships. For there is something about photography and its willingness to describe that has made it possible for its subjects to see and be seen by one another. Photography lends credibility, it validates and indexes those impulses rarely seen, let alone represented, by conventional means.
Despite the whimsical nature of much of this work, there is also a dark humor, not unlike playing near the haunted house at the end of the street. Here, desires and imagined thoughts become realized. Objects become desirous-a woman's shoe, a couch, a bathtub, a discarded mask…. As with a Morrisroe Polaroid, it is perhaps the photograph itself that becomes the shared object of longing-whether it is a token of friendship or a memento for someone or something long gone."
PARTICIPANT INC's exhibitions are made possible with public funds from the New York State Council on the Arts, a state agency.
PARTICIPANT INC receives generous support from the Harriett Ames Charitable Trust, Bloomberg, The MAT Charitable Foundation, The Andy Warhol Foundation for the Visual Arts, and numerous individuals.
PARTICIPANT INC is located at 95 Rivington Street, between Ludlow and Orchard Streets on the Lower East Side. Gallery Hours: Wednesday-Sunday, noon-7pm.
Link: ParticipantInc.
Polaroid by Mark Morrisroe above.
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