Nicking the Never, the title of the Marina Zurkow installation at DiverseWorks is enticing enough to check out the exhibition. Friday night we attended the opening reception and DW3D member after party at a photographer’s studio down the dock. What a scene!
A funk band jammed in the photographer’s studio as the crowd chowed on giant Whole Foods cookies and other yummy and savory treats. I couldn’t stop looking at the knickknacks around the studio and then of course the menagerie of people. Stephen later commented, “these are the people we should be hanging out with in Houston.”
The Zurkow exhibition features ten screens hanging in the darkened exhibition space. Each has a seemingly-simple animation of a hip young woman moving through repetitive tasks. Speakers placed beneath each screen periodically play a clever sounding electronic tune that makes the room feel very much like a dance club. I could stand in the space and watch this for hours. The images are relaxing, maybe even mesmerizing. You can check view unused scenes on h
er website.Once you read Zurkow's explanation of the work you want to pick her brain to really understand the depths of the meaning. On her website she writes:
"Nicking the Never” is a multi-linear installation that incorporates screen-based animated narratives into a sculptural interface. Composed of allegories about a young girl stuck in a kinetic world of emotional pitfalls, this kaleidoscopic trip into the states of selfhood bases its structure in the Tibetan Buddhist Wheel of Existence, whose images luridly and vividly describe the human struggle with need, jealousy, complacence, aggression, desire, and ego. Borrowing this emotional taxonomy, “Nicking the Never” unfolds in six corresponding short chapters: “Guzzle,” “Bash,” “Buoy,” “Smash,” “Nuzzle,” and “Dash.”
The exhibition is up at DiverseWorks until February 25, 2006. Check it out!
Images from Zurkow's website.
