Mark Booth continues to juxtapose art and language in this multi-disciplinary exhibition, Spanish Still Life or A Large List of Merged Animals. Sound, performance and projection are just some of the tools Mark Booth uses to dissect and restructure a 17th-century still life painting by Spanish artist Juan Sánchez Cotán into a dynamic installation. This project is presented in conjunction with the 2008 Outer Ear Festival of Sound, a program of Experimental Sound Studio, Chicago.
Booth aims to construct a sensory experience that liberates Cotán’s subjects of quince, cabbage, melon and cucumber and poetically embellishes them beyond recognition. Spanish Still Life or A Large List of Merged Animals showcased a walk-in installation that seeks to provide a physical and psychological contemporary exploration of the Baroque painting Still Life with Game Fowl (1600/1603) by Juan Sánchez Cotán, currently in the collection of the San Diego Art Museum. The artwork included a 2-channel digital projection, 2 metal panels in the dimensions of the original Cotán paintings being referenced and an 8 -channel audio component that, when combined, transfer an eerie still life painting into a multi-dimensional study of organizational strategies. Booth aimed to construct a sensory experience that liberates Cotán’s subjects of quince, cabbage, melon and cucumber and poetically embellishes them beyond recognition. The result is a calendar of wild beasts and stimulated senses (for example, a sloth-toed cat or kisses that taste like boiled weeds) that, when spoken, immediately sends minds wandering a parallel universe.
Experimental Sound Studio is a nonprofit organization founded in 1986 and dedicated to the promotion, production, presentation, and preservation of innovative and diverse approaches to the sonic arts and to the integration of these art forms into the public.
