4-18-08
Gotham Art & Theater

by Elisabeth Kley

"...A more everyday alienation is the subject of "UStrust," an imaginary bank at Schroeder Romero on West 27th Street in Chelsea devised by artist Eric Heist (who when he’s not in the studio co-directs the very real Momenta Art in Williamsburg -- where he once had the good sense to show my own artworks). "Trust us" is scrawled across the surface of a teller window made from black reflective glass, but the only thing needy customers can turn to are their own reflections in the dark. In Staged Death, ($15,000), what seems to be a frustrated client has expired face down on a low square black-carpeted pedestal surrounded by black light bulbs. Covered with a blue cloth, the body is cut off from the public by stanchions, as if it has collapsed in a boxing rink for a one-sided defeat. The exhibition also includes a series of color photographs ($1,850 each) of the accouterments of middle-class life -- home, car, supermarket -- labeled in tiny letters with quotations from texts by the poor ("I steal to feed them," "they spend a fortune punishing me"). A video features Heist himself fruitlessly threatening the nonexistent teller behind his black window with a gun, and then sliding to sit on the floor in defeat. A pair of drawings of the meager possessions of the homeless, based on photos of Miami Beach taken during last winter’s art fair season, can be seen in a smaller gallery. Priced at $2,500 each, they are quiet reminders of individual helplessness in the context of art-world luxury."


–ELISABETH KLEY is an artist who writes on art.