For this show two separate localities are chosen and represented. The first is a defunct basement music venue in Milwaukee's Riverwest neighborhood, the Outhouse. This somewhat quixotic search for a long lost source of youth is represented in the fury of every loud, beer and sweat stained basement punk show. The second is the Milwaukee women's jail which Cucullu passes on his way to his Harambee neighborhood studio. In this case choosing to highlight inherent geometries possessed by the fence that buffer this institutional architecture and it's surroundings. The exhibition is formed by a conglomeration of wall works painted directly onto the gallery walls, a screen print and several watercolors. Taken as a whole, these works question not only the inherent boundaries found in how an object takes form, but also what these boundaries may illicit when they are transplanted from one place to another.
Container 1:
I can conjure an old lady, slut, beloved's grave, paradise, urinal cake, gasoline straight from the can, a lavish dinner party, a piece of velvet, blindness. My germplasm is full of contrasts: smoky, civety, powdery, fishy ambery, resinous musky. I am an intricate machine designed to project an olfactory effect remote in both time and space. I do not smell "good" in the strict sense. I am rather strange up close, while radiating a quietly melodious aura.
I'm built around an outdoor theme: Air (white fir, musk, vegetal amber), Water (violet leaf, violet flower, transparent aquatic accord) and Wood (vetiver, cedar wood). The first seconds of me are neither pleasant nor useful, unless you have a wound to attend to, mosquito bites on your arms or, perhaps, a nurse fetish — the first thing I smell of is the aroma of: alcohol. I am not a “real” woodland smell — there’s no damp moss or raw wood accords, no powerful “green” or “dirt” notes.
Container 2:
My aroma is skunky, crashing with heavy adjuncty grain, highlighted by white sugar, raw corn, cabbage and something a bit fishy or ocean-y. Maybe also the slightest lime aroma. My middle moves forward accordingly with more grains, which here have subdued the bitterness a bit. My finish is mildly clean and citrusy. The aftertaste breathes with standard malts, and really nothing else but a lingering bitterness.
Container 3:
I am the other that goes in your mouth and not on your neck. Avoid swallowing. A folk medicine repellent failure. All that's left to do is to mint out the self-loathing of a forced hybrid, liquid commingling (also: halitosis). I wash out your mouth while your liver washes out. At least the taste is gone. Anti-Probiotic. The most threatening opposite of antibiotic.The nomeansnobiotic. After the Spill, the Seep, the Spoil. The taste of kebab from a rotating spit, meating your spit, spit for blood, blood for spit. I can only kill 99.999% of the germs. 0.001% remain. You can always try putting toothpaste on the bite.
~~~
Anicka Yi is an artist based in New York City. Her work has been exhibited at 179 Canal (solo), White Columns, Gavin Brown's Enterprise, The Artist's Institute, X Initiative and others. Upcoming shows include group show at Karma International (Zurich) as well as solo exhibitions at The Green Gallery (Milwaukee) and 47 Canal.