Then/Now, the just-ended residency by Dani Dodge at Shoebox Projects, held its closing reception on the 17th, but like the ringing echoes of the car crash the installation depicted, the aftermath of the exhibition lingers in the mind and heart.
Above, the artist with the soft-sculptural portion of her exhibition.
The room-sized installation Dodge created in her month-long residency took the incident of a pile-up the artist was caught in, and used that as a springboard to depict survival – and the choices one makes after having survived.
There is an almost lighthearted feeling to some of the installation, which really makes sense when you consider Dodge’s approach to the situation: the seriousness of the accident, the jolt of realizing she had emerged from it more or less physically unscathed, her vulnerability and her strength, all coalesced to form a recognition of our fragility and, more importantly, of our resilience.
Viewers entered through a soft, spinning mobile gauntlet, velvety fabric sculptures resembling a steering wheel here, a tail-pipe, a hubcap there.
Dodge, center; video projection behind her. Left to right, artists Hung Viet Nguyen, Chenhung Chen, Dodge, Shoebox Projects’ founder Kristine Schomaker, artist Francisco Alvarado.
Photo above by Mark A. Dodge Medlin
Ducking through this somewhat random collection, an experience of the tumult of the very-LA morning commute, we were then presented with video footage of driving Los Angeles freeways, childhood photographs, and LA scenery. The full-wall projection incorporated music by The Proclaimers, terrific driving music — I used to drive to it all the time, “I’m Gonna Be (500 Miles).”
Suddenly the music stops, the projection goes black, and viewers are compelled to turn to a small analog TV on the opposite wall, which comes to staticky life with a shadowy image.
Photo above by Mark A. Dodge Medlin
Surrounding the TV are broken windshields, painted and decorated windshields, and what speaking personally were the most affecting images: a series of ghostly white and grey cars caught in a web of traffic, a shattered car windshield in front of them, and a painting of an orange vehicle with the license plate reading “Then/Now.”
Dodge seems to be positing the question: can everything change in a moment? Well, yes, of course it can. Can that moment, however dark, be shaped into something quite wonderful by the sheer strength of our own humanity? When it comes to this exhibition, the answer again is affirmative.
Photo above by Mark A. Dodge Medlin
Dodge’s 101 Freeway smash-up was surreal in the moment, and all too real in the aftermath when she checked on her own injuries and those of others, and surveyed her broken vehicle. But ultimately, the crash led to something like understanding: having survived, she examined her own sense of purpose. She made a conscious decision to turn the event into a work of art, one that has a visceral impact on viewers.
Dodge with Schomaker.
We are indeed fragile and vulnerable beings, despite the crunchy shell of the metal and fiberglass wheeled boxes in which we spend so much of our lives.
Photo above by Mark A. Dodge Medlin – author at the exhibition
Emerging from that cocoon, what exactly is our destination? Dodge posits that life is short, driving LA’s freeways can make it shorter still. Carpe Diem. Seize the day and that car insurance policy.
There’s no insurance against the vicissitudes of life – except living. And art.
Genie Davis; Photos: Genie Davis, and by Mark A. Dodge Medlin