Jennifer + Kevin McCoy
Through January 3 - Jennifer + Kevin McCoy: All Exit at Johansson Projects. After their 2009 residency at Headlands Center for the Arts, the McCoys returned to Headlands this year as part of the Alumni New Works program and used their time there to develop this brilliant exhibition at Johansson Projects. The artists examine the culture of the West Coast and of Silicon Valley in particular through a series of multimedia dioramas and sculptural miniatures, melding the playfulness of elements borrowed from board games with more sinister iconography that references totalitarian propaganda (as in Priests of the Temple, pictured above). The centerpiece of the show is The Constant World, an epic installation that resembles a cluster of illuminated nerve cells hanging from the gallery ceiling. Cameras capture scenes from tiny dioramas within the sculpture and project them live onto a nearby screen, so if a visitor is either very patient or very lucky they can insert themselves into the narrative as a looming presence. The work in the exhibition, as it presents realities both attractive and apocalyptic, encourages cynicism toward the grandiose promises about a better future painted by start-up execs, about which anyone from around these here parts will be well familiar. I thought of how the term "disruption" has been appropriated and of how for a certain ride-sharing company it just seems an excuse to ignore ethics entirely.
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Special postscript: The next show at Johansson Projects is Jennie Ottinger's Letters to the Predator, and it's going to be amazing. Do not miss!