Miami-born, Colorado-based artist Christine Egaña Navin’s exhibition, HOT SWAP, at Laura (the gallery) is excellent, thwarting conventions of what a video-based, sculptural, and photographic practice is, both in this regional context and within a larger art world whole.
Installation view of “HOT SWAP”
The exhibition consists of a single sculpture that utilizes stripped-down screen displays (gutted flatscreen televisions) to represent to-scale objects (and the floor) via still imagery on a substrate that is typically utilized for video. The masses of cabling that are requisite for such works are left very clear and visible, arranged in a methodical manner that may seem chaotic to the uninitiated, but in fact, is quite organized and intentional to the knowing or AV-experienced viewer. This is both a still-life and a planar sculpture which consists of an 11-channel array of video-format displays.
Installation view of “HOT SWAP”
But is it also a work of installation? There is that feeling here, not least of which because the room is entirely darkened and this system of added blackout “curtains” has an edge: I say “curtains” in scare quotes because they simply consist of black plastic sheeting adhered straight onto the window’s glass.
This act gestures toward the existence of something “dirty” (or even “sketchy”) hidden behind the door. It reminds me of how the Montrose I grew up with used to be: what is now a highly gentrified and sanitized area was formerly a thriving — albeit somewhat seedy and dangerous — neighborhood. It entranced me as a young and closeted child: it was a symbol of desire, fear/anxiety, laced with a knowing that I might belong there. But that site of a wild and thriving Queer existence that thumbed its nose at the homophobic culture of Texas is no more. Its lack — however complicated its existence was — leaves a grief-laden feeling of Queer diasporic nostalgia.
Detail shot of work in “HOT SWAP”
I somehow feel all this and more here in the dark as the screens glow with a somewhat ominous presence. Representations of a generator and a propane tank rest upon the video-plinth-as-floor. Here, these objects are fast becoming hurricane survival necessities, as storms increase in strength and the power grid fails frequently. The changes in climate are palpable on the Gulf Coast, even as we are surrounded by so many deniers. Then again, there is a lot of denial here, in so many ways.
Detail shot of work in “HOT SWAP”
Navin’s work is also technically (and technologically) fascinating. The prevailing notion for video to conform to the public’s desire for both fidelity (increasingly high definition display and camerawork) and immersive qualities (large environmental installation techniques) is both on display and simultaneously subverted in the work presented. By showcasing a to-scale sculptural work that simultaneously gestures to the conventions of video while utilizing the still or photographic, Navin successfully feeds both of these public desires/pressures (high definition, immersive) without defaulting to anything that exceeds the human scale. It is what it is: the screen-as-plinth is a to-scale photographic representation of the floor that lies beneath it, while the represented objects that rest upon the plinth (a propane tank and a generator) represent the source object with full integrity.
Detail shot of work in “HOT SWAP”
I have only been back in Houston for a few months, but I can say — without a doubt — that this show is adventurous in optimistic and inspiring ways: that this type of exhibition exists (with ease!) in a regional culture which many folks elsewhere conceive of as backward, conservative, right-wing, etc. As a born Texan, I know that the stereotypes (as a blanket characterization) are erroneous: they erase the presence and work of far too many creative, innovative, and political stances that exist here, which coexist here, and which simultaneously do not cave to normative pressures. The mere existence of us and our work is an act of resistance, increasingly so.
This exhibition gives me renewed hope for the ability, drive, and verve of the Southern art community (in institutional, grassroots, and more commercial contexts) to continue to work to defy convention, to be experimental, and to thwart the normative. We will prevail here, as well. We continue to exist. And the work drives us forward.
HOT SWAP is on view through March 16 at Laura in Houston.
The gallery will host a curator-led talk with the artist on Saturday, March 15 at 1pm.
