Domestic Structures

ATHICA,  

Athens Institute for Contemporary Art

2017






Christina Price Washington’s artistic contribution to the exhibition “Domestic Structures” at ATHICA (Athens Institute for Contemporary Art) offers a unique perspective on home through her photographic work. The exhibition, curated by Candice Greathouse, brings together seven female artists from Atlanta and Athens to explore and reimagine the notion of domesticity in the 21st century.
Washington’s “Couch” piece is a photogram that transforms a familiar household object into something slightly eerie. This work aligns with the exhibition’s theme of examining domestic spaces and objects through a contemporary female lens. Using the photogram technique, Washington creates an image that is recognizable and alien, challenging viewers to reconsider their perceptions of everyday items within the home.
The “Domestic Structures” exhibition draws inspiration from the 1970s Womanhouse art collective, created by feminist artists Judy Chicago and Miriam Shapiro. This historical reference point provides context for the show’s exploration of home as a place of creativity rather than female confinement. Washington’s contribution and works by other artists, such as Meta Gary, InKyoung Chun, and Lauren O’Connor-Korb, collectively seek to redefine and expand upon traditional notions of domesticity.
While the exhibition has been noted for its sophisticated intent and well-crafted works, critics have suggested that it falls somewhat short of fully reanimating the meaning of home for contemporary female artists. Nevertheless, Washington’s “Couch” adds to the exhibition’s diverse perspectives on domestic life, contributing to a broader dialogue about the intersection of art, gender, and lived spaces. The inclusion of Washington’s work in this group show demonstrates her ability to engage with complex themes through photography. By presenting unfamiliar, familiar objects, she invites viewers to question their assumptions about domestic spaces and the objects that inhabit them. This approach aligns with the exhibition’s goal of examining how female artists interpret and represent the concept of home in the modern era. In the context of the entire exhibition, Washington’s piece stands alongside other thought-provoking works that explore various aspects of domesticity. From Meta Gary’s interactive fort installation to Brittainy Lauback’s unsettling office photographs, the show presents a range of interpretations that collectively challenge and expand our understanding of what constitutes a domestic structure or experience.
Christina Price Washington’s participation in “Domestic Structures” highlights her role as a contemporary artist engaging with themes prevalent in the contemporary art discourse. Her work contributes to a larger conversation about the evolving nature of domestic spaces and how female artists perceive and represent them in the 21st century.
 Art review:
Female artists examine the notion of home in Athens show

Meta Gary’s “Fort 5,” sheets, sofa, TV and video, is featured in the ATHICA exhibition “Domestic Structures” in Athens.
CONTRIBUTED BY BRITTAINY LAUBACK
By Felicia Feaster

May 23, 2017

Home, as it is understood by female artists, is the crux of Atlanta curator Candice Greathouse's exhibition "Domestic Structures" at the cool Athens alternative art space ATHICA, housed in a warehouse facing railroad tracks on the industrial fringe of town where artist spaces, dance studios and creative companies share close quarters.
Featuring seven artists from Atlanta and Athens, "Domestic Structures" is a spare, subtle show with some nice air time between pieces. That degree of space between work, both physical but also psychological — allowing the mental space to ponder the work — is important, and always appreciated when so many group shows overstock their exhibitions, certain that more work and information equals a more persuasively mounted thesis.
Though far from perfect and a show in need of a hook beyond female musings on the domestic, "Domestic Structures" shows sophisticated intent that falls short of its desire to reanimate what the home means in 21st-century artists' terms. The exhibition's stated jumping-off point is the Womanhouse art collective created in the '70s by feminist artists Judy Chicago and Miriam Shapiro, which imagined home as a place of creativity rather than simply of female confinement in domestic servitude.
There is work that gets at the security and womb-like comforts of home — Meta Gary's humble, sloppily charming tent fort, for instance. To enter "Fort 5," viewers shuck their shoes and crawl inside the sheet- and blanket-draped cave, to sit on cushions pulled from vintage sofas and watch a tiny, vintage television featuring "Sesame Street," home movies, "The Never Ending Story" and other comforting childhood entertainments. The forts we built in childhood may be our first attempt to create an ideal home of our own, one founded on security and softness, and that evocation may be the sweetest idea in the mix.


InKyoung Chun’s “Blue Gate” (foreground) in steel and neon.
CONTRIBUTED BY BRITTAINY LAUBACK
On the opposite end of the spectrum for its austere evocation of home is InKyoung Chun's "Blue Gate," a steel structure in the iconic shape of a house whose blue neon tubes give a mere semblance of warmth. "Blue Gate" suggests that the idea of home is as basic as a street sign; an empty vessel we fill with our own ideas, comforts, positive and negative connotations. Lauren O'Connor-Korb's "Gregor's Anxious Dreams" strikes a similar note of formalist dis-ease: inside a mantel or shelf, an incessantly pinging whirl like a lottery ball forever looping in its basket signals some caged anxiety pent up in the home's very structure.


Lauren O’Connor-Korb’s “Gregor’s Anxious Dreams” is featured in the group show “Domestic Structures”
CONTRIBUTED BY BRITTAINY LAUBACK
A sophisticated evocation of the fragility of home, Elizabeth Lide's "Dirty Laundry" plays like a collection of archaeological relics. Her vases and pitchers crafted from paper pulp and plaster suggest a myth of home propped up with great effort. Channeling a similar handicraft moment, Jessica Machacek's "Curtain: Blue Majestic With Ocean Bottom" is a quilt whose cozy, homegrown ambiance is destroyed by its material — vinyl.


(From left to right) Jessica Machacek’s “Curtain: Blue Majestic With Ocean Bottom” in pool vinyl; Elizabeth Lide’s “Dirty Laundry” in plaster and paper pulp; and Christina Price Washington’s “Couch,” photogram.
CONTRIBUTED BY BRITTAINY LAUBACK

There is also work that asserts the domestic as a subject without offering much more by way of insight like the talented photographer Christina Price Washington's photogram of a "Couch" that turns a familiar object into something slightly eerie. Some of the most enticing work in the show are Brittainy Lauback's quietly creepy magazine-slick images of vintage offices. Her beige and peach-colored push button telephones and answering machines are relics of another age, a "Mad Men"-era when office work was less a career than a purgatory before marriage. Vases of roses and manicured nails suggest women as the ultimate office appliance. All of the bland, sand-colored office accessories lend a mix of sadness and vapidity to the world depicted that gets under your skin.

Feaster, Felicia. "Art review: Female artists examine notion of home in Athens show." The Atlanta Journal-Constitution. Cox Enterprises, May 23, 2017.
Additional Reiew:
Rodgers, Jessica. "'Domestic Structures' Expand Within ATHICA." Flagpole Magazine. Flagpole, Inc., May 3, 2017.