ILARIA VINCI
Iris IV

 

December 18, 2021 - March 2022
 

Our Last Best Hope
Plymouth Rock
Opening Friday, December 17    17 - 20h

Mind Gamer
Longtang
Opening Friday, December 17    19 - 22h

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Iris is a hero type in an epic franchise, the absent main character of a double saga exhibition between my space and Longtang’s. In the giant diorama here, part toy / part stage, she researches. Books are piled high to the cosmos, an icy desert globe spotted with desirable seas sits center and a collection of extraterrestrial vehicles are preserved in giant glass jugs. Impossible bottles have been curios in wonder cabinets for centuries, but it wasn’t until civilization started mass producing waste, glass included, that the ship in the bottle became a classic of vernacular creativity. The work of Ilaria Vinci, in pieces and wholes, is technical, sweeping in scale and concept and anchored by a belief in the power of truths hidden out in the open. It’s become a cliche that our last decades lean towards science fiction and fantasy. But hasn’t it always been true? The hopeful mirror we create in our own image? In Vinci’s compositions that place entertainment and literature and advertising and our known universe into a blender she speaks to honest realities of possibilities. There is a deep optimism in depicting any far future. Iris, unseen but hovering, surely acts as an alter ego for the artist and as a selectable avatar for the rest of us visiting these visual games. A place where knowledge is collected and stored and saved is our last best hope. The portal will take you to Mind Gamer.