Ghost of a Dream and Jennifer Dalton
PROJECT DESCRIPTION
Ghost of a Dream: Lauren Was/Born 1977, Philadelphia, Pennsylvania; lives in Wassaic, New York; Adam Eckstrom/Born 1974, Saint Paul, Minnesota; lives in Wassaic, New York; Jennifer Dalton/Born 1967, Los Angeles, California; lives in Brooklyn, New York
Ghost of a Dream and Jennifer Dalton; Statistics of HOPE, 2018; mixed media installation; measurements variable
A partnership between the collaborative duo Ghost of A Dream and Jennifer Dalton resulted in a multi-media gallery-sized installation that unrolled the psyche of our current consumerist and data-driven culture. Ghost of a Dream mines the concept of the American Dream in their work, using lottery tickets, playing cards, Hollywood tropes, and art fair detritus for elaborate works in video, sculpture, painting, and installation. Their sparkling and jazzy patterns attract and mesmerize, making us forget that they are intended to lure us into false hopes and dreams that are based on materialism.
Jennifer Dalton develops personal systems to organize her archaeological finds from current culture, often collecting data to use as a ‘reality check’ on personal perceptions. Her work in sculpture, drawing, photography, and video often incorporates mechanisms for viewer participation and social interaction. The trio created a complex, multi-part experience in which a large wall text drawing displays 100 lines of results when the question, “___% of people…..” was posed to a search engine. They made this query with every number from 1% to 100% and transcribed the top results of each. They began with 1%. The wild carpet on the floor is a mosaic of pieces sourced from the demolished Trump Hotel in Atlantic City and lamps from the hotel have been reworked to become indicators of our feelings toward the question posed on the brass plate at the base of each lamp: viewers control a dimmer switch to indicate their response. Participatory, frenetic, intense, this installation is, in a sense, an analog of the grip that a monetized consumer culture has on its citizenry.
Studying together at Rhode Island School of Design, Lauren Was and Adam Eckstrom, who work together under the moniker of Ghost of a Dream, have created exhibitions across the US, Europe, and Asia. The Robert Rauschenberg Foundation, Pollock-Krasner Foundation, Joan Mitchell Foundation, and the Bemis Center for Contemporary Art, among others, have supported their prodigious work. Commissioned for the new entry at the Massachusetts College of Art Museum, Boston is a magnificent, ambitious monumental hall and stair treatment which they call Yesterday is Here, on view through 2022.
Jennifer Dalton, educated on both the west and east coasts, at UCLA and then Pratt Institute, has been the recipient of fellowships from Pollock-Krasner Foundation, MacDowell Colony, Yaddo, and Vermont Studio Center, among others. Her work has been shown at Staatsgalerie Stuttgart, Germany; FLAG Art Foundation, New York; Curator’s Office, Washington, DC; Kunsthalle Wein, Austria; and Museum Brandhorst, Munich, Germany.
https://www.ghostofadream.com/
http://www.jenniferdalton.com/
Photographs courtesy of the artists and Rafael Gamo
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Statistics of Hope, 2018. Exhibition view at 601Artspace, New York. Statistics of Hope explores themes of chance, risk, hope and truth through an interactive gaming installation that invites viewers to physically experience the odds of various hopeful or fearsome outcomes.
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Statistics of Hope, 2018 (detail) paint pen drawing on wall 50 x 198 x 49 inches/127 x 502.98 x 124.46 cm as installed The drawing consists of 100 lines; each line shows the top several results of a Google search query using the words "1% of people," "2% of people," "3% of people," etc., until the last line, "100% of people." Each source website of the search result is cited within the drawing. For instance, the first line of the drawing begins, “1% of world’s people now own 82% of the wealth, according to CNBC; 1% of people now own half of global wealth, according to the Independent UK; 1% of people own half the world’s wealth, study finds, according to The Guardian; 1% of people own 38.6% of American wealth, according to CNN.com; 1% of people have these body features, according to YouTube; 1% of Americans has Celiac disease, according to Beyond Celiac; 1% people manage to avoid these 7 common life mistakes, according to Inc.com...”
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End Game, 2018 triptych: ink on cork-board and paper, with spinner, dart, plexiglass and wood 25 x 23 inches/63.5 x 58.42 cm each These drawings ask viewers to contemplate how they may die by inviting them to throw a dart, spin a spinner or simply look. Each hand-drawn pie chart proportionally represents the 13 most common causes of death in the US: (in order: heart disease, cancer, kidney disease, respiratory disease, accidents, influenza, diabetes, Alzheimer’s disease, stroke, suicide, overdose, murder without firearm, and death by firearm)
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How Much...?, 2018 16 lamps salvaged from Trump Plaza hotel casino in Atlantic City, fitted with dimmer switches and trophy plates 50 x 198 x 49 inches/127 x 502.92 x 124.46 cm as installed Each lamp poses a question on a trophy plate mounted on the top, below the dimmer. Questions include: Will our country get through this? How much does the current state of our democracy affect you personally? Do you trust technology to improve your life? How happy are you? Are you capable of change? How safe do you feel?
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How Much...?, 2018 (detail) One of the 16 lamps salvaged from Trump Plaza hotel casino in Atlantic City, fitted with dimmer switches and trophy plates 49 x 12 x 12 inches/124.46 x 30.48 x 30.48 cm each The trophy plate mounted on the lamp poses a question and viewers are invited to respond to it by using a dimmer switch to dial the light up or down depending on their personal response. This lamp asks: “Does it make you uncomfortable that this lamp came from our president’s bankrupt casino?”
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Statistics of Chance, 2018 Mixed media multi-part interactive gaming table 49 x 125 x 160 inches/124.46 x 317.5 x 406.4 cm Statistics of Chance is a multi-part gaming table where users are invited to play shuffleboard from the viewpoint of an artist to determine what might happen in a month of their career, to spin a wheel of fortune, to flip minute timers inscribed with a number of occurrences that happen in a single minute, to roll dice to find their chances of living to 100 based on what year they were born, to find out their chances of becoming a millionaire based on their personal and cultural attributes, to flick spinners to determine how happy they are, their chance of an orgasm, and the likelihood of their art to be on view in a private collection or in a museum; and to ask a fortune telling piggy-bank/magic 8-ball a question.
