Jeremiah Barber: PARA/SEL/LLEL/VES

Co-curated with Kevin B. Chen. San Francisco Arts Commission Galleries: Main Gallery. March 2016. 

PARA/SEL/LLEL/VES is a new performance work by Jeremiah Barber that continues his investigation of the impossibility of fully seeing the self. Since 2008, Barber has created a series of detailed and fragile body replicas that are destroyed or collapsed in the course of time or in a performative action. The body replicas present a volatile view of the artist's perspective on the body and its limitations in exploring the beyond.

For PARA/SEL/LLEL/VES, Barber's body replicas are further fragmented and will fall during the performance as through a slow-motion limbo. A custom-built mirroring pool and a table of spools unthreading provide the stage for the performance. Audience members are welcome to come and go during this two-hour durational performance, which will undergo a gradual transformation throughout the evening.

This newly commissioned performance accompanied the exhibition, Bring it Home, (Re)Locating Cultural Legacy through the Body, curated by SFAC Galleries Director Meg Shiffler and independent curator Kevin B. Chen. The exhibition presents work from artists representing diverse Bay Area communities, and centers thematically on how these artists grapple with cultural identity and its relationship to the human condition. January 22 – April 16, 2016