I'll be your mirror....so you can break into endless shards

Exhibition July 17th - August 10th, 2008 at Heist Gallery

by Chris Martino
Curated by Metro Color Collision, the creative team of Julie Fishkin and Matt Lucas.

While this exhibition is an obvious reference to the mythic Velvet Underground song titled "I'll be your mirror" in which Nico sang in her beautiful ingenue voice the first part of this title, it is equally a celebration of love, life, empathy, death and everything we may endure through a shared experience with another.

I'll be your mirror, reflect what you are/ in case you don't know.....

When you think the night has seen your mind
That inside you're twisted and unkind
Let me stand to show that you are blind
Please put down your hands
Cause I see you

The song is about how you can understand someone you love despite all the inner turmoil and twisted self-perceptions.  It's about ultimate empathy and the recognition of beauty in the simple of truth of being there, of that impending present moment that erases everything before it and supplants everything after.

The title is also an homage and reference to Nan Goldin's brilliant collection of photographs for which the book bears the same name.  As you know, they reflect her friendships, loves, lovers and everything they have been through over the years -- their battle with drugs, AIDS, love and everything in between.

The work presented in this exhibition of thirty-one artists depicts their individual gazes, their perceptions of self and of others; they expound upon love, friendship and the personal story of each artist but through a lens of inherent contradiction that can only stem through utter introspection. The results are personal, beautiful, aloof, disturbing, twisted and unkind.