Catherine Biocca

For her first exhibition with PSM, Catherine Biocca will transform the gallery space into an immersive environment containing videos, sculptures, and wall works. The gallery will take on the feel of a waiting room by using PVC prints that look like the interior of a rundown space, and whose design is modeled on the rebuilt interiors of Villa Boscoreale and Boscotrecase that were partially destroyed during the eruption of Mount Vesuvius. Five animated videos with sound will be interspersed throughout the gallery, lending the exhibition some visual and aural dimensionality. In one of the videos a voice can be heard talking to a customer service agent, who is not being at all helpful and who turns out to be the inner voice of the customer himself. Continuing her series of animated paintings, there are also several wall works made from printed PVC with industry marker drawings of classical Roman figures on them that have aluminum printed faces. The drawings are made with two colors: one color to represent one time and a second color to represent another, intimating the progression of movement. Cumulatively, the works create an almost creepy atmosphere, an in-between place where our expectations are met and frustrated at the same time, much like many customer service lines today. This dioramic exhibition continues Biocca’s interest in exploring the absurd or comical elements of existence that we encounter every day, and in this way pinpoints with laser accuracy the various unquestioned levels of society through which we walk and talk.