Thaddeus Strode (*1964) has set a stage in the gallery space that is as concrete as it is complex, immersing the viewer in his artistic universe with paintings, sculptures and installations. The exhibition’s title in my room (fathoms and displacement) is a quote from a song by the Beach Boys that refers to the central meaning of the private world and mythology that makes up Strode’s artistic creations.
The Beach Boys. In my room (1963)
There’s a world where I can go Do my dreaming and my scheming In my room
And tell my secrets to Lie awake and pray In my room
In my room, in my room Do my crying and my sighing In my room
(In my room) Laugh at yesterday In my room
In this world I lock out Now it’s dark and I’m alone
All my worries and my fears But I won’t be afraid
In my room, in my room In my room, in my room
(In my room) (In my room)
An expansive landscape in miniature finds itself in the gallery’s exhibition space, with thoughts, questions and images that Strode has sketched into its structure that together with the other works in the exhibition unfold a fascinating narrative. Perched atop a pedestal in the gallery space is a beached shark made out of papier-mâché. Strode portrays him as an ambivalent creature, an awkward cartoon character that has lost any menacing power. The title of the work, The impossibility of the physical (2013) makes reference to Damien Hirst’s 1991 sculpture that consists of a Tiger Shark conserved in formaldehyde, which Strode contrasts with his own seemingly naïve version of the fish in order to investigate the potentiality of representation and perception. The sculpture The Drowned Sea Captain (2013) consists of a miniature model of a horse-drawn cart, pulling the coffin of a drunken sea captain, who seems to be here on his last voyage. Added to these scenes are the auratic words of the Japanese Alpine climber Yūichirō Miura1, rendered in large yellow letters as both a prelude and requiem on one of the gallery’s walls: “The end of one thing is the beginning of another. I am a pilgrim again.”
Two new large-format paintings make up The constellation of parts which compose oneself (The mirror), and portray astral constellations with seemingly symbolic details. The images allow themselves to be read as complementary versions of one another, in which cryptic visions of fate seem to become illuminated. With a series of small format paintings, Strode takes up in his work the ever-present images of American cartoons and comics. The square canvases are reminiscent of album covers, from which both the round vinyl and his stories emerge.
