W-4 2020
Gallery ALSO, Los Angeles, CA
Gallery ALSO, Los Angeles, CA
Completing the W-4 form on the first day at work is always a strange experience. One must decode a puzzling document while simultaneously finding where to sit, writing with a pen that’s not familiar, and gauging the vibe of the new workplace. At the same time, there is a feeling of excitement and hope for the new job. This combination of alienation and enthusiasm shows our complex relationship to work and its impact on life. We often seek meaning, stability, and even wealth from our job, but are also isolated and scarred from it.W-4 is an exhibition that speaks to this discrepancy between work and life. Inspired by their own relationship with labor, each artist remembers, celebrates, and critically reflects on their own and others’. In the show, one’s work can be traced from various objects—from a safety harness, regularly activated lights, bottles of coffee, to a moving box.
W-4, 2020. Installation views. Gallery ALSO, Los Angeles, CA
Camille Gonzaga Papa.“People talk about, America, everything is imagined nice and beautiful.” 2019.
Wood, house paint, single-channel audio on loop; 01:30:00 hr.
Wood, house paint, single-channel audio on loop; 01:30:00 hr.
A balikbayan box carries items sent from overseas Filipinos back to the families in their home country. In “People talk about, America, everything is imagined nice and beautiful” by Camille Gonzaga Papa, viewers are invited to sit on a recreated version of the balikbayan box and listen to her mother’s story of immigrating to the United States. Papa’s mom narrates her long journey over the Pacific Ocean and her laborious chase to the American Dream. Her saying, Bahala na or “It’s in God’s hands”, summarizes the common way Filipino Americans copes with this struggle. For Papa, the balikbayan box holds many sentimental values: generosity, comfort, and intimacy to the homeland. The box is both a symbol and a living capsule for her families’ economic and emotional exchange.
John Junghun Lee. Daydreaming of a Monday Morning Without an Alarm Clock, 2019.
Shelf, Starbucks frappuccino® chilled coffee drink, light bulb, string light, books,
alarm clock, sticker, artist’s shoes, iPad mini, iPad stand, power sources;
single-channel video on loop, color, sound; 4:00 min on loop.
“A cup of joe”, “American runs on Dunkin” are familiar phrases that describe our consumption of caffeinated substance in exchange for productivity. John Junghun Lee’s Daydreaming of a Morning Without an Alarm Clock is a figure made out of shelves. The core of the shelves are comprised out of bottles of Starbucks’ chilled drinks, books and an alarm clock. The objects on the shelves metaphorically tell the functionality of a body, yet the most remote object of all, the lightbulb is the core of warmth, light and flow of energy. This sculpture is part of Lee’s ongoing exploration of labor politics and the use of neurochemicals in the neoliberal economy. The figure is subsumed in caffeine and rambling words. The figure is overworked. The figure is incapable of making a complete thought. However, rambling becomes poetry.
Cheng Cheng. Bondage, 2019. Single-channel video, color, sound; 7:57 min.
In Bondage, the artist Cheng Cheng plays a popular video game, Just Dance while wearing his custom-designed drawing machine. The machine traces the movement and heartbeat of the wearer in three dimensions and creates an abstract drawing. For Cheng, the machine stands for an arbitrary rule that he has created for himself. The resulting drawing is an indexical recording of one’s physiology on a site. While dancing to a censored version of Britney Spears’ famous mantra Work B**ch, his safety harness that connects him to his machine turns erotic or obsessive. The harness becomes an object of constraints and desire.
Carly Chubak.Non-Exempt, 2019. Light bulb, timer switch, extension cord.
Carly Chubak’s Non-Exempt depicts labor directly through energy—the bulbs work a standard 8-hour work day, with lunch and rest breaks as required by California Labor Law. Each bulb starts its day at 9am, and takes a half hour lunch at 1pm (Labor Code 512). They must each receive a minimum of two 10-minute rest breaks during their 8 hour day (8 California Code of Regulations 11040, Section 12 Rest Periods), and because Chubak is a generous employer, she gives them two 15-minute breaks to be taken at their discretion. Non-Exempt explores the difficulties facing the modern workforce, particularly young people. The monotony of the canonical 8-hour workday is often seen as oppressive, but in today’s uncertain gig economy, it can be seen as comforting as the warm glow of an incandescent lightbulb. The structure of the sculpture mirrors the structure of the idealized American workforce, aligned both physically and mentally.