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Catherine Chalmers: American Cockroach
12:00 PM  Boise Art Museum
Description:
Catherine Chalmers: American Cockroach
July 12 - November 9, 2008
In
her American Cockroach project, Chalmers records the half-imaginary
life of the domestic pest known as the cockroach. The exhibition
highlights the photographs, sculpture, and video work of Catherine
Chalmers. Chalmers explores the question of what it is to be human and
what is man's relationship to the insect world, examining preconceived
notions about insects and specimens. As Chalmers notes, "Today, people
tend to deny the obvious fact of death and violence in their world."
And this is especially true with regard to animals, which tend to fall
into the category of either pests or pets. Our connection to nature and
the animal world has been domesticated. "In the past, animals had a
much higher value in peoples' understandings of themselves." Chalmers'
series theatrically dissects the life of the prehistoric cockroach and
the sometimes-surreal operations of nature that deposited the creature
plunk in the middle of modern kitchens and bathrooms. American
Cockroach offers up an ecosystem where the laws of roach life and
survival become strange and distorted human manifestations, not so much
a biology but a mythology of the common house roach. Her eco-system is
at once natural and exquisitely overwrought, seen schizophrenically
from behind the lens of a camera as well as shot from the one-on-one
perspective of the roach itself
Age Group: All Ages
Venue: Boise Art Museum
Address: 670 Julia Davis Drive | Boise, Idaho 83702
Phone: 208-345-8330
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