Beth Campbell

Nicole Klagsbrun is pleased to present How Did We End Up Here?, an exhibition of new work by Beth Campbell, running from October 7 until November 5, with an opening reception on Friday, October 7, from 6 until 8 p.m. Beth will present a series of watercolors, a new video piece and two sculptures. We asked Beth about her new exhibition and she sent us the following email:

We act as if we are observed and every action causes an unalterable future. Decentered, it’s not about something, the world is only what we apply to it through time. No one is ever in denial, they are just lying. Maintain the illusion. Artificialness keeps revealing itself, but no one is interested. Your environment betrays you. Strange interpretations, change without change. Eternal present.

Landscapes become a random network of pure trajectories whose occasional collision suggest a possible topography.

Everything is co-present.

“A landscape of time in which events suddenly take the place of relief, of vegetation; in which the past and the future loom up together in all their obvious simultaneity; a place where nothing follows on from anything else any more and yet nothing ever ends, the lack of duration of the perpetual present circumscribing the cycle of history and its repetitions.” - A Landscape of Events, Paul Virilio, 2000. MIT Press

I am surrounded by my own debris.

here is no “where” for me to go. I don’t want to be anywhere. Nothing is better or worse. A point between two points. I don’t want to go home and I don’t want to be here. I can’t stand to see what I see. It shouldn’t be so hard. I don’t even know how to get anything done. Everyone is desperately trying to be like everyone else, but everyone else keeps changing. I’m having a hard time adapting.

We act as if we are observed and every action reveals a future. Something we can take home, keep the world away, take what you need. You’re safe with me. Maintain the illusion. Artificialness keeps revealing itself, but no one is interested. You betray you. Strange interpretations, change without change. Do you really think the way you live is through you? It’s all crud.

I know that I can’t even have a blue period because I have a credit card.

What seems sincere to you? Something you want to believe in.

Beth Campbell lives and works in Brooklyn, New York. This will be her second solo show with the gallery. Her recent exhibitions include Make Belief at Sala Diaz in San Antonio, Texas, as well as Statements at Art Basel Miami Beach 2004, presented by Nicole Klagsbrun Gallery.

Pressetext

Beth Campbell: How Did We End Up Here?