THE WAY THINGS GO
20 November to 20 December 2008
Python is a popular programming language that makes a chunk of our world
work, but not always dependably. It runs youtube.com and is a staple of
Google and Wall Street. It is named after Monty Python’s Flying Circus, and
by tradition, examples showing how to use the language quote from Monty
Python movies. Working snippets of code include
Im.a.lumberjack(and.im.ok())
killer.rabbit(killer.rabbit (run!,away!))
better.get()|a_bucket
By combining these snippets with others, the Monty Python oeuvre can help
run a factory, model stock markets, or count “and”s on the Internet.
Each of the works in this show exhibits its own quixotic functionality.
Each is a mechanism, list, assembly line or other practically impractical
structure where production is fraught but earnest; mechanisms work
strangely or not at all; parts unravel the very structures that they
create. In the works’ well-worn, handmade imitation of mass production or
practical functionality, there is pointed critique. The care with which the
parts are crafted and elucidated, and the casual precision with which they
interact indicate a grudging acknowledgement of our culture’s functional
structures which sometimes enable and often oppress. As solutions to
problems, their process mimics that by which so many of our accepted
institutions are founded, success through failure re-engineered. A
haphazard though human means to an end, in our civilization these
constructions represent for better or worse, more often than not, “The Way
Things Go”.
Susan Inglett Gallery is pleased to present “The Way Things Go”, a curated
exhibition inspired by the Fischli and Weiss film “Der Lauf der Dinge (The
Way Things Go)”. Artists in the exhibition include Luca Buvoli, Buckminster
Fuller, Fischli and Weiss, Rube Goldberg, Tim Hawkinson, Beom Kim, Mika
Rottenberg, Greg Smith, and Phoebe Washburn.
The exhibition will be on view at Susan Inglett Gallery located at 522 West
24th Street Tuesday to Saturday 10 AM to 6 PM. For additional information
please contact Susan Inglett Gallery at 212.647.9111, fax 212.647.9333 or
http://info@inglettgallery.com.