Institutionalized

The meaning of conflict changes from person to person, place to place, language to language.

Events throughout the world last year, this year – this month, even – have highlighted our divisions, be they political, racial, religious, sexual, or generational. The big and the small. The system and the fringes. The known and the unknown. Continuity and change. The similarities and the differences.

Outsiders who want in on any system have to play the game, it seems. There is a language in each world; a way to do things, a way to see things, a way to buy things, a way to discuss things. There are names to know, places to visit, coffee table books to get. There is an air of exclusivity. So where do outsiders fit in? There is a dialogue. There is also a tension.

Reductively described, this project is a series of pairs: two images layered over one another. At its root, this simple juxtaposition digs into the uneasy conflict of merging two worlds together.

The large photos that serve as backgrounds were made at the major art institutions in New York City, one of the world’s art capitals. They are black and white, structured, formal, big. The small color photographs capture parts of the un-curated world outside.

In some ways they clash, in some ways they align.