Off Season – Becca Albee
Off Season – Becca Albee
Off Season
07.10.2005 – 30.10.2005
Lump gallery/projects is very pleased to present Off Season an exhibition of new work by New York artist Becca Albee. The exhibition consists of five works considering the idea of expectation. In these works, Albee charts the moments of inaction, highlighting anticipation and the wait rather than the spectacle and climax of final moments. Built on a sense of possibility instead of a taste for the “main event,” her work presents the space of ambiguity, which can celebrate failure as well as success.
Rinks (1-5): Off Season are five photographs of outdoor ice skating rinks in Maine photographed in August. The rinks are overgrown and reveal their un-maintained state in the form of duck ponds, unkempt fields and weed-fillled cement slabs.
Compulsory Figures is a fun video montage exploring the realm of in-between moments. A sequence of action/reaction shots put the iconic footage of screaming Beatles fans and collected TV broadcasts of ice skating competitions together in a way that seems humorously absurd (the fans� hysteria meets uneventful skating flourishes). Underlining the overall theme of failure, the montage is soundtracked with Marianne Faithfull’s rendition of “I’m a Loser,” which literalizes the action-image, opening ground for personal questioning and contemplation on the meaning of failure.
The collection of photos which comprise Hamill Haircuts considers the democracy of celebrity in the form of identity & style. All the photographs in this piece are of anonymous faces sporting Dorothy Hamill’s look. (In fact, the photographs are from a call to Albee’s family and friends requesting photographs of them with the haircut she made famous.) There is a preference given to the everyday, the every-person, the non-spectacular. Do you get to be Dorothy Hamill just because you have the haircut?
The viewer gets one last chance to become Dorothy Hamill with Hamill Soundtrack. In collaboration with Dorothy Hamill, who wore binaural microphones in her ears during a practice, Albee provides the viewers a chance to hear what it is like to skate like the icon. Along with the audio, a motorized spotlight “follows” the audio footage creating a private experience of sound.
Becca Albee was born in Portland, Maine. Her photographs, videos, audio projects and hand-made products have been featured throughout the US and abroad in a variety of contexts. Her work was recently featured in the book and DVD: Grunkurs Kunst 4: Action Kinetik Neue Medien, and can also be seen this November at China Art Objects in Los Angeles. Compact, a photographic book presenting collected non-traditional beauty tips is scheduled for completion in 2006. Becca Albee attended the Skowhegan School of Painting and Sculpture, received her BA from The Evergreen State College in Olympia, Washington and her MFA from University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. The artist currently resides in Brooklyn, NY.
Lump is located at 505 S. Blount St, Raleigh, NC. More information about our mission and exhibition programs can be found at lumpprojects.org.
