Slow, Dimwitted Carnage

Alina Tenser, Anne Deleporte, Azikiwe Mohammed, Cody Hoyt, Corin Hewitt, Dwyer Kilcollin, Jake Borndal, Joanna Malinowska, Josh Schwartz, Kristen Jensen, Kristof Wickman, Leah Dixon, Lior Modan, Lucas Blalock, Michael Jones McKean, Morgan Pearse, Nick Van Woert, Ryan Crowley, Sacha Ingber, Siebren Versteeg, Stephen Dean, Zach Bruder, with the guitar collection of Philippe Labeau

“Could Montgomery Ward’s 131 different designs of pocket knife be said to be the result of the discovery of new ways of cutting?”

- Henry Petroski “The Evolution of Useful Things”

“You suddenly become friends with something you’ve never seen before. You don’t have to go to a museum, it’s out there in the street. All these things make you want to piece together your own world, but one that’s fun. I’m in favour of good-mood worlds.”

- Martin Kippenberger

Coustof Waxman is pleased to present “Slow, dimwitted carnage”, a group show of 22 artists and one collector.

Each artist has been commissioned by the gallery to create an object for the exhibition, with one shared rule: each work must hold and serve liquor. This installation is complimented by 22 guitars from the personal collection of Philippe Labeau, a French-Moroccan filmmaker. He developed the collection over 20 years after discovering the existence of promotional guitars produced by beverage corporations in a pawnshop in Ohio.

Operating under a single constraint, the artists are tricksters, playing with definitions and strategies of survival. A zoo of sorts, “Slow, dimwitted carnage” embraces the cage of function, and asks a simple question: is what something does the most important part of what it is?