a curator's office in a micro gallery setting
now at the micro gallery
A Life of Errors
Nicholas & Sheila Pye
--Kristen Hileman, Assistant Curator of Contemporary Art at the Hirshhorn Museum and Sculpture Garden
A Life of Errors: Nicholas & Sheila Pye presents films and photography by celebrated Canadian husband-wife collaborative team Nicholas and Sheila Pye. The exhibition includes two acclaimed films, The Paper Wall and A Life of Errors, part of a trilogy of films that the Pyes are developing, and five related photographs. An opening reception for the artists is scheduled for Saturday, September 16 from 6:30 - 8 pm in conjunction with the joint receptions of the Galleries of 14th Street.
The artists take their married relationship -- generally a taboo subject matter in contemporary art -- as a point of departure for a metaphoric foray into power struggles and communication issues between two individuals. Yet their work retains a dramatic ambiguity about the nature of relationships such as the seesawing of attraction and repulsion or the adopting of different gender roles for expediency or manipulation. An additional emotional complexity is layered onto the narrative by the identification of the characters as brother and sister. The couple dissects the boundaries and lays bear the evocative richness of both their co-dependency and intimacy. The films, (transferred to DVD for presentation in the gallery) and photographs that amplify the filmic project are disquieting and erotic, melancholic and wry.
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Kristen Hileman, Assistant Curator of Contemporary Art at the Hirshhorn Museum and Sculpture Garden and adjunct faculty at George Washington University and the Corcoran College of Art and Design has written an accompanying text for the exhibition. She notes, "In their films and photographs, the Pyes explore the troubling ground where a connection between two people becomes so intense that it confounds or replaces the human instinct to preserve self."
"The artists conceive and construct the visually striking sets for their films, carefully choosing objects with personal significance to fill the rooms their characters will inhabit... The Pyes spend up to a month building these environments, which at once evoke a nostalgic and deconstructed sense of domesticity. Related photographs make use of the sets to develop themes from the films in further directions."
Read the exhibition brochure by Kristen Hileman
Read the Washington City Paper review by Jeffery Cudlin
Read the Washington Post review by Jessica Dawson
The Pyes have exhibited their work in numerous international film festivals such as the Worldwide Short Film Festival, Toronto (where The Paper Wall won "Best Experimental Film"), the Locarno International Film Festival, Sweden; Slamdance Film Festival, Utah; and Rencontres Internationales, Paris, France. Their work has also been exhibited internationally at Angell Gallery, Toronto; Kasia Kay Art Projects, Chicago; Begona Malone Gallery, Madrid; Sixty Seven Gallery, New York; and the Harvey Levine Gallery, Los Angeles as well as numerous noted international art fairs such as ARCO, Scope New York, Scope Miami, and DIVA.
Read Sheila Pye's CV
Read Nicholas Pye's CV