1301PE is delighted to present Diana Thater's tenth solo exhibition with the gallery, The Conversation, 2021.
Since Thater began working with the gallery in 1992, she has produced a number of large-scale installations involving light and video in the space at 6150 Wilshire Blvd in addition to the seminal works first exhibited at the gallery's original space at 1301 Franklin St in Santa Monica. The Conversation, debuts a new body of work, consisting of two video pieces, as well as Thater's signature window gel-installations. The exhibition is on view through November 13,
2021.
"There are many that I know and I know it. They are many that I know and they know it. They are all of them themselves and they repeat it and I hear it. Always I listen to it." – Gertrude Stein_, The Making of Americans _
Many of Diana Thater's works begin with the point at which the subjectivity of humans and animals meet. Through color, light, image, and form, the artist generates an experience with which the viewer can empathize without anthropomorphizing the natural world. In _Talk to Us _(2021) and Listen to Us (2021), the artist's second major sound works, two human voices mirror each other in call and response, beginning with simple phrases and progressing into longer ones, mimicking a parrot-like voice. A third audio track of an African grey parrot vocalizing to himself without knowing he is being observed plays simultaneously as an external-internal monologue. The common misconception is that parrots are mimics, when in fact they process language as humans do, through socialization, rather than simply repeating what is heard. Like humans, a parrot's subjectivity is expressed through its vocalizations, asserting its presence through speech and volume. With this work, Thater subverts the false notion that the use of language is what separates humans from animals. As demonstrated in this cacophonous dialogue, spoken language is indeed shared between the two species. Through her use of dramatic shifts in scale, both visual and auditory, Thater alters the viewer's point of perception within the exhibition, creating an imme rsive installation that challenges the linear narratives humans rely on to make sense of themselves and the natural world.
Press release courtesy 1301PE.
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