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“HOME” is a socially and historically constructed concept; the home and the family are, according to historian Jan Lewis, “society in miniature.” Given the complexities of contemporary culture, making a clear, overarching curatorial statement about domesticity is a daunting undertaking. But the SPACES exhibitions committee has attempted to do just that and the show, Home on the Edge: Artists create a picture of domestic bliss in disarray, includes some fine work and installations despite a less than concise illustration of the curatorial theme.
The most notable contributions to Home on the Edge have more to do with the past than with the present. Michael Crowder's A Sense of History series includes an array of objects that have been transformed into gorgeous frosty white glass monuments to themselves. Ordinary, functional items like a pipe and a gramophone are made as precious as fine paintings or an ostentatious china sugar bowl. The artist arranged the luxurious items in a room-like setting with rich wood and maroon walls — his “home” is from the past, and the objects are remnants of a historical narrative cast with rich white people.
This problem pervades much of the work in the exhibition, as several artists explore themes or employ icons of white culture and privilege. Another visually compelling, well-crafted installation is Stephen Litchfield's environment of altered windows and furniture. His Altered Piano is seamless; he cut a piano apart, eliminating a major portion of it and bringing the two end sections together, leaving just three white and two black keys, which remain functional. His setting also includes two altered Mission-style chairs that are also adroitly re-crafted; Litchfield refashioned them so that the seats are so narrow that the chairs are rendered useless as functional objects, but are transformed into brilliant sculptures. But again, the original Mission pieces are imbued with a largely white, Protestant history, and it is difficult to make a connection to the exhibition's theme. The questions of whose “domestic bliss” is being explored, and whose “home” is on the edge, constantly plague you as you wander through the Home on the Edge exhibition.
Johnna Kwon's work has a more universal appeal, and her photographs are stunning and well-produced. Her images focus on the dusty, grimy corners of rooms. Diamond earring in corner reveals a precious jewelry item amid dust bunnies on a stark wooden floor. And Rotting bathroom corner exposes a place where chipping, white-painted trim, a wall with peeling caulk, and a relatively clean tile floor converge. A bit of filth fills the space where the three planes meet — it is a detail of daily life that transcends history, race and class. This minute space of dirt, decay and imperfection could be anywhere.
It is clear that we are connected to our cultural history; however, that history — the way it is written, and for whom it has been written — is often contested, often politicized. The topic of domesticity, of “home” and, for that matter, of “bliss,” can't be put forth without questioning the root of these constructs and the history and — largely white, middle- or upper-class — ideology of domesticity. The curators of Home on the edge could have done a better job of addressing these important social issues, and they should have more pithily defined the theme of the exhibition.