Chain Letter
« back to All BlogsBy Debbie Hagan
Around 5 p.m. on Saturday, Samson Projects, 450 Harrison Avenue in Boston, saw mobs of artists crowd into the gallery. A few days earlier, Camilo Alvarez and his staff knocked themselves out hanging 1,200 artworks. When the exhibit opened, artists, in addition to their friends and family, rushed in to see their work on display, hung salon-style over the gallery’s walls, stairway, basement (usually the domain of the artist in residence), and every nook and cranny available.
Samson’s pop-up exhibit was just one in chain of shows aptly called Chain Letter. The idea is relatively simple: the gallery invited ten artists to submit one work and invite ten more artists. Those ten could invite ten more and so on, with invitations continuing for thirty days.
All of these invites resulted in a massive artist-curated show with sculpture, video, installations, photography, collages, multimedia work by Todd Pavlisko, and more. Though one might say the show was a tad unwieldy and a bit chaotic, there’s no arguing that it offered a dizzying display of contemporary art and artists. On Saturday night, no one could see that much art—or that many artists—in one place.
That same night, galleries in Berlin, New York, Johannesburg, Los Angeles, Philadelphia, New York, Paris, and Seoul opened their Chain Letters. At Samson, it was one-night affair (unfortunate for those who missed it). One can only hope that Alvarez will consider a repeat performance next year.
| Just for accuracy...due to a major highway closure, the event at it's originating location in L.A., will open on July 22nd. http://shoshanawayne.com/upcoming-exhibition.php?/Chain+Letter/&id=236372# |
| Posted by: Debra Ramsay On: Jul 21, 2011 9:57 am |
