Continuing through January 4, 2014
In Carson Fisk-Vittori’s solo show titled “Women Weed and Weather,” the femininity suggested by the title is false and impersonal, the flora is artificial and passive, and the meteorological forces of nature are powerless. In her assemblages and installations of shampoo bottles, lady razors, potted plants, faux flora, glossy advertisements and digital prints, the Oakland, Califonia-based artist is anything but subtle in driving the point of her content: mankind’s preoccupation with suppressing and smothering the natural.
Paralleling consumer culture’s reduction of womanliness to shiny hair and smooth legs, and nature to the vase of arranged flowers and the feeble houseplant, Fisk-Vittori’s pervasive formalism simplifies the various meanings of her objects into cold, commercial-like displays. In “Plan for a Pond: Organic,” travel-sized shampoos and nail clippers mingle with feathers and tiny flowers arranged end-to-end in an oblong circle on the wall, emphasizing the absurdity of attempting to fabricate such a feature of the natural landscape.
