“Most of the time when people curate an art show, they go into an artist’s studio and they select works that they like,” says Epiphany curator Alyssa Taylor Wendt. “This is a little bit more of an exercise in trust and surprise and experimentation – to ask people to work with a theme or an idea and then sort of help guide them along the way, but really just know that they're going to come up with something brilliant in the end.”
That’s the idea behind Epiphany, the new group show at Co-Lab Project’s Culvert Gallery. As curator, Wendt didn’t start with existing works but with a prompt – the idea of creating works inspired by historical ‘points of divergence,’ moments that might have been met with shock or skepticism in the moment but which withstood the test of time.
Wendt gave that prompt to four artists (Michelle Marchesseault, Diana Welch, Kate Csillagi, and Mimi Bowman) to see what it inspired in them. “I selected these four women because I think that their work is provocative and sensual and smart and funny and topical and this reflects all of their personalities as humans, but also their power as artists,” Wendt says. “So these four women have made murals, sculptures, ceramics, a fountain, an installation and video work. The theme that we're working with here sort of started with an idea I had about subverting comfort. It sort of goes back to a tradition throughout the last couple of centuries that we see with work that's really groundbreaking. Anything from punk to minimalism to, you know, Stravinsky – when he first presented The Rite of Spring, for instance, [it] caused a riot in the theater because it was such an unexpected combination of compositional notes that people weren't used to hearing that they didn't know how to accept it. So my idea was to present things that… provoke change, perhaps shock. Just, you know, something that defies categorization. And sometimes when I've experienced this in my life, there's a moment where your mind goes blank and you're sort of living in this state of bliss, this like blissful non-categorization, right? Where it's not very easily defined. And in that, new neurons are formed and there's nothing you can sort of easily pigeonhole it into. So the idea is to have people see the works but not really understand what easy categories they fall into. And maybe in that moment, [you’ll] allow your brain to just accept and experience it as it is. So we have things that are very shocking to the senses, very beautiful.”
It's a bold starting point for an art exhibit, but one that Co-Lab founder Sean Gaulager felt made Epiphany a good fit for his gallery space. “Mostly because I trust Alyssa and we've worked on lots of projects together and the results of those projects have always been incredible,” Gaulager says. “And Alyssa just has an incredible mind and a sense for these things and curatorial and artistic talent. And I kind of let her run with it. She proposed this show about a year ago and it just sounded like something really compelling and interesting for us to take on. And [like something] that would work really well in the Culvert, which is already sort of a space that sort of upends people's expectations to begin with.”
Gaulager explains that the Culvert Gallery is aptly named. “Our gallery is essentially a concrete tunnel,” he says. “It's built from these concrete culverts that were donated to us from a cement manufacturer next door. And it's a very untraditional kind of space. So you have kind of this big lot and then this sort of straight through tunnel space that we kind of transform in all these different ways – artists come in and activate it and kind of utilize it as a sort of a nontraditional structure to mount exhibitions and almost kind of tell a story as you walk through the space. It kind of functions as a place of transit in some sense.”
“You know, I think it really reminds us that growth happens through risk and taking chances,” Wendt says. “And I feel like taking chances on new artists, on new ideas to create new conversations, and just sort of stave off any sense of stasis or, you know, expectation or commercialism, is really important. If we think back through art history and also music and, you know, dance, theater, film, all the things that have really marked change and growth are things that were maybe considered a little bit outrageous when they came out. [Art that] forced people to sort of think of things in a new way. So ultimately, it is somewhat of a lofty goal, but I also want to encourage other artists, other curators, other galleries to take more risks.”
The show has been up for a few weeks now and will close toward the end of the month. “The show will end on October 26th,” Gaulager says. “Then we're going to close it out with a big Halloween costume party and closing reception that will run from 7 to 11 or later. We always say 11, [and] we always end up going late as in Co-Lab style. And yeah, it should be a blast. I think it's going to be a really nice way to sort of round out the exhibition.”
