Bari Ziperstein’s exhibition “Hallucinations for the Home” humorously comments on how the world of interior design and architecture has gone slightly awry in a consumerist society. While the photographs of the site specific works in her home fully illustrate this concept by allowing the picture to seem like it was from an interior design magazine, I thought the individual sculptures in the gallery space were what emphasized our problems of consumerism and to some extent unnecessary design in today’s utopian home. The Untitled (Brass Lamp) sculpture, which is 19' x 1' 1/3" × 1' 1/3," is the first piece that one sees upon entering the exhibition and in the end, probably one of my favorites. Placing the gold chandelier on a sort of tall pedestal made out of plaster on foam core, the purpose of the lamp is defied, unable to hang in the room and light the space below. With the chain from the chandelier hanging loosely and the actual chandelier just sitting on top of the beam, I believe this piece comments on how we have turned the consumerist objects in our home into the main attractions and how we have forgotten how to use true architectural design in our home. By allowing the architecture to intrude upon the lamp, Bari Ziperstein reverses the ideas of what the interior magazines portray in a utopian home and almost hides what would typically be the first impression upon entering the space of a home. Also, by using the color white for the architectural beams, the sculpture blends into the space, awkwardly highlighting how silly the actual object can be. While the other pieces in the exhibition have more dynamic aspects to the architectural beams, this sculpture’s simplicity is what jumped out at me and allowed me to grasp an idea of what Bari was commenting on.
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Bari Ziperstein’s exhibition, a site-specific sculptor, photographer and collage artist, showing at Bank in downtown Los Angeles, was titled “(This Isn’t Happening) Popular Hallucinations for your Home”. For the past year, her work has dealt with combining architectural elements and the home. The scenes resemble home décor magazines. White, geometrical forms, made out of foam core and plaster, intrude Ziperstein’s home scenes. She utilized her own apartment, inserted the architectural forms, and took images of these scenes for he solo debut.
One such image is Untitled (Home Office), 2006, at first glance is a standard image of a typical study, consisting of a wooden desk, papers, books, chair. However, the twist is a cylindrical pillar protruding from the round, hanging ceiling light fixture. The cylindrical pillar bisects the wooden desk, creating division within the image, and draws your eye to the large and foreign object. The image of the pillar creates a formal sentiment which is juxtaposition with the lived in and personality that is revealed by the home office. The home office is usually a more personal, informal space, away from the strict rules of the corporate office. The pillar almost creates comical relief from the insinuated toils of working at home.
The Banks space was somewhat small, white in color, and sectioned in rooms, as are typical galleries. The cylinder, although show in an image, created a relationship with the gallery space. It echoed the usually pretentious and serious nature of a gallery space, but provided comic relief because of its site.
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I recently saw Bari Ziperstein’s photography/sculpture exhibition at the Bank gallery downtown. For these works, she built the white structures (as seen in each picture) placed them in different areas of her house, and then hired a photographer from Home and Garden magazine to take the photos. Also is the gallery, we the same kinds of white structures with different elements attached to them, for example a hanging lamp. I really liked her work because of the creative way she put the sculptures into the rooms. I thought the idea of taking pictures of architectural objects within architecture (her house) was very ingenious and successful. I thought the composition of each photo and sculpture was excellent and the combination of vivid colors with subtle lighting was ideal.
Although I really enjoyed the entire exhibition, I think the piece I enjoyed the most was Untitled (Alexandra) 2006-07. This tiny statue with that voluptuous woman figurine was so enticing. The white structure is so geometric and the little lady is so curvy. I really liked how the white statue covered her face. I thought this was a good decision because it’s really not about her face, its about her body; the comparisons of the two figures that are very different yet combined into one unit. I also like how the small scale of the white objects. I thought that the idea was for the two elements to work together not compete. Again, an interesting and extremely success combination.
Another main reason I think I was so drawn into Bari’s photographs is because I simply loved the decoration of her house. I think interior design, choosing those motifs and combinations, is also a form art. Overall, this exhibit was fresh, interesting, aesthetically pleasing, and makes me want to follow her work in the future.
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Bari Ziperstein’s exhibition “(This Isn’t Happening) Popular Hallucinations for Your Home” at Bank Gallery features Ziperstein’s photographic and sculptural body of work highlighting the whimsy and explorative reconfiguring of interior household spaces through snake-like plaster structures. Ziperstein’s photograph Untitled (Bedroom), 2006 documents one of these sculpture installations in which these solid plaster figures wind, twist, invade and inhabit a purple bedroom punctuated by reds and magentas. The photograph frames the architecture of the installation, with two large plaster shafts arching over the bed and three smaller figures, two resting on the lampshades and a center one snaking from one picture frame to another.
Ziperstein’s figures function like actors on a stage, performing acrobatics that take the viewer in and out of interior spaces, crevices, nooks and crannies. In Untitled (Bedroom), 2006, the plaster sculptures transform the bedroom space from something banal to a Dr. Seuss-like wonder world. The effect of these figures is similar to the architecture of De Chirico’s paintings or Kurt Schwitters’ Merz sculptures. Like De Chirico’s strangely offset architecture, Ziperstein’s figures manipulate the environment in a way that transforms ordinary into an uncanny dream-like space. Similar to Schwitters’, Ziperstein uses a vocabulary of blanche solid forms that reconfigure interior spaces into alternate dimensions by adorning and crowding furniture and performing strange balancing acts through simple geometry, triangulations, curves and intersections.
The juxtaposition of these quirky, invasive forms with the domestic décor of interior spaces suggests an economic and political dimension to architecture and consumerism. Untitled (Bedroom), 2006, like other pieces in Ziperstein’s exhibition, displays scenarios in which home furnishings and architecture are fused and brought under scrutiny via the hyper-real sculptural configurations. In a sense, Ziperstein’s sculptures expose the relationship between architecture and consumption seen through domestic living. Overall, Ziperstein uses whimsy and fantasy to deconstruct the dynamics of consumer living and the way it transforms and dictates the curves, bends and balancing of architectural spaces.