Last Week - Agnes Bolt: Dealing at Project 4

Agnes Bolt: Dealing

October 22 - November 26, 2011

“Dealing,” a solo exhibition featuring new work by Agnes Bolt. Bolt, an interdisciplinary artist who uses photography, video, installation, and intervention in her art practice.

Bolt’s most recent project playfully investigates complex relationships, as artist and art collector are contractually obliged to intervene in each other's lives for one week. A series of rules, exercises, and communication systems dictated the physical and virtual interactions between the two strangers with the intention of examining the consequences of the artists’ undeniable presence in the collector’s life. “Dealing,” features the works created for, during, and in response to these experiences.

For the first interaction, Bolt imposed herself along with her temporary plastic living structure in the home of art collector, Philippa Hughes, becoming dependent on Hughes for nourishment, affection, and intellectual discourse. Performance became real life and real life became performance as multifaceted interpersonal and power dynamics played out. The artist became a witness, fetish object, captive, intruder, spectacle, mirror, insider, outsider, friend, and yoga instructor.

In the second interaction, Bolt constructed a series of virtual exchanges between herself and art collector, Philip Barlow. This experience borrows from online fantasy and constructed identities, while considering the power plays and seduction of producing and consuming art. One exercise connected the pair through a live audio feed, which allowed artist and collector to hear each other's heartbeats during the course of an entire night, exploring distance, vulnerability, and simultaneity.

Agnes Bolt was born in Poland and is currently living and working both in Brooklyn, NY and Pittsburgh, PA. Bolt is presently a MFA candidate at Carnegie Mellon, Pittsburgh, PA. Recently, Bolt’s work was projected at the Internet Pavilion, 54th Venice Biennale and shown at Microscope Gallery in New York. She is a recent recipient of the Heinz Foundation Artist Grant, the AW Mellon Grant, and a Fine Foundation Grant.

Project 4, 1353 U Street NW, 3rd floor, Washington, DC 20009
http://www.project4gallery.com/

Wednesday - Saturday 12:00 - 6:00 pm, and by appointment.
CLOSED Nov. 24-25 for Thanksgiving