REVOLUTION! by Lisa Kirk

REVOLUTION!
Lisa Kirk
May 1 — June 1, 2010

Experience NOMAD

In a continuing effort to enliven the NOMAD district, Kew Management is pleased to provide space for Revolution!, a storefront installation by Lisa Kirk in the windows of 1133 Broadway, between 25th and 26th streets, New York.

As with our support of Cartoons in Conflict and Event Horizon, Kew is finding innovative ways to enhance this exciting area for our tenants and perpetuate the growing interest in this unique neighborhood.

The Artist: Lisa Kirk

		Lisa Kirk’s work examines the contradictions of consumerism and the aestheticization of formerly radical political signifiers. Informed by contemporary reality television culture, her projects are intentionally infused with an overflow of symbols that imply something “real” is happening. Kirk uses strategies designed to draw in an audience stretching beyond the parameters of the “art world” and seeks to explore what art can be in the 21st century. The exhibit appears upside down. As Kirk says “An installation upside down I think infers that the world

is upside down. It’s a reflection of an idea that one can make an object that reflects a politically volatile situation, and make it something that everyone can have access to. I am not trying to make fun of anything at all. It’s more a critical comment on the way we internalize or perceive or incorporate things into out lives in a capitalistic society.”

Kirk’s work has been extensively covered in the art and general press, including Artforum, L’Uomo Vogue, Plan B, The Guardian, Time Out London and New York, The New York Times, Flash Art, Frieze, Art in America, The New Yorker, New York Magazine, and Art Review.

The Work: Revolution! — Installation, Fragrance, and Video

In this site-specific installation, Lisa Kirk addresses the marketing of transgressive political and social practices through her creation of fragrances and an exploration of the system around their production and manufacturing. Revolution! also marks International Workers’ Day (May Day), a day traditionally defined by political demonstrations and celebrations. The body of work and artistic statement includes:

The storefront installation — In the large window on the right, Kirk produced the imagined production site of the fragrance, an upside-down makeshift laboratory and anarchist hideout. The smaller window on the left features an illuminated store display of the original Revolution! fragrance as well as her latest fragrance, Timebomb, both in bottle editions designed by Kirk.

The fragrance — based on the olfactory memories of revolution from Kirk’s interviews with journalists, activists and political radicals. Kirk crafted the final scent to suggest the odors of smoke, gasoline, tear gas, burnt rubber and decaying flesh, packaged in limited edition as a precious metal pipe bomb. Kirk observes, “These days we can’t have a revolution, so why not make a perfume that smells like it, so you can buy it and wear it and smell like it.”

The commercial — Revolution! (the commercial) functions as both marketing and video art promoting the fragrance displayed in the storefront window.

Signage and a free cell phone audio guide provide passersby instant access to information about the work and the space donated by Kew. The audio guide, available 24/7 at 646-205-7619, provides listeners access to colorful commentary and stories about the show, straight from the artist.

The Ace Hotel is also participating in this event. A retail version of Revolution! is on sale at No. 8a at the Ace Hotel for $50, and the Revolution! (the commercial) will be available on the hotel’s video-on-demand in each room for the duration of the installation.

SmartSpaces presents contemporary art in the windows of vacant spaces with a mission to make art —and information about art— accessible to everyone while energizing local communities. SmartSpaces operates as a non-profit organization through fiscal sponsorship from Fractured Atlas, Inc.