Pink grenades, a gun-stocked medicine cabinet and pink glass high heels create a domestic setting with explosive undercurrents during Silvia Levenson’s “I See You’re a Bit Nervous” at The Bullseye Connection Gallery October 1 – November 30, 2005.
Portland, OR –The Bullseye Connection Gallery is proud to present Silvia Levenson’s “I See You’re a Bit Nervous,” on view October 1 – November 30, 2005.
I’m generally tired of life on earth. I just feel faint at the idea of how many washed and unwashed floors, boiled and unboiled milk, landlords, saucepans and much more are in the pipeline for me…I just don’t know how to live in this world.
-Marina Cvetaeva (The Country of the Soul)
“The uneasiness of daily life that Marina Cvetaeva describes so well encompasses all the hues of hatred, and more banally, of unhappiness,” says Levenson. “Sometimes households become like a pressure cooker. Houses are cozy milieu that often turn into small emotional bombs that are ready to explode. In this work, I’m investigating family relationships where a subtle violence exists – which is sometimes clearly visible…it is exactly the best-known people that can become aliens, family members who turn into enemies and houses into battlefields. Without any combatware, without any training, people within this rarified environment go to war; victims are killers, too, in some or most cases. All of this happens seamlessly in an apparently striking normality; very ordinarily, in fact.”
The exhibition includes kiln-cast glass and mixed media objects in a rosy pink hue, including the title work for the exhibition, “I See You’re a Bit Nervous,” an installation of a cozy table for two with a centerpiece of pink grenades. The tablecloth and lamp above are accented with her signature razor blades encased in pink glass. Elvis Presley-inspired titles describe objects in a “kitchen” setting – “Are You Lonesome Tonight” is a medicine cabinet stocked with pink guns. A pair of pink high heels spiked with wire is inscribed with and titled, “I Love You, Honey”. A pink gun on a wall plaque is lovingly inscribed with and titled “Besame Mucho”. A limited-edition DVD produced by Levenson and her daughter Natalia Saurin will also be a part of the installation.
Argentine-born Levenson fled Buenos Aires in 1981 during the political upheaval of the “dirty war” and immigrated to Italy. Her work has been shown in solo exhibitions all over the world and is included in the following selected public collections:
Altare Glass Museum, Altare, Italy
Casa de Las Americas Collection, Havana, Cuba
Comune di Catelvetro, Castelvetro (Modena) Italy
Corning Museum of Glass, Corning, NY
Ernesting Glass Collection, Germany
Glass Collection of Leon Rigaulleau Museum, Buenos Aires, Argentina
Glasmuseum, Ebeltoft, Denmark
Glas Museum Fraueneau, Germany
Musée-Atelier du Verre de Sars-Poteries, France
Museo del Vetro, Altare, Italy
Museo Leon Rigaulleau, Argentina
Levenson will present slides and a short lecture at a reception celebrating her Bullseye exhibition on October 19, 2005, 5:30 – 7:30 pm.
Download: Silvia Levenson August 9, 2005