Double Room

Due to the process-based nature of the Session program, this project will undergo constant modifications; the features of this page provide accruing information on the project’s developments.

This fall, artists Corin Hewitt and Molly McFadden will collaborate on the first project at Recess, a new art space at 41 Grand Street in Soho, NY. Recess invites resident artists to use its storefront space as studio, exhibition venue and grounds for experimentation. Wednesday through Saturday, the space is open to the public free of charge.

Hewitt and McFadden have approached the unique program at Recess as an impetus to merge production with performance, inviting the public to approach their practice as it evolves. The result is a production of shared temporal and visual experience between artists and audience, obscuring the distinction between studio and stage.

Praesent commodo cursus magna, vel scelerisque nisl consectetur et. Aenean eu leo During September and October the artists will construct two elongated parallel workshops, visible through adjacent apertures. The joined yet discrete spaces inside Recess will appear identical, both employing visual techniques of forced perspective. In November, the artists will begin working inside their built spaces. At fixed intervals, Hewitt and McFadden will switch rooms to replicate the other’s previous output. The artists will photograph their work as it is completed, using the photographs as a tool for the next cycle of reproduction.

The duplicate spaces will develop incrementally along the same trajectory, but as the artists work, inconsistencies of touch, skill, and reaction will cause the workshops to diverge as a set of mutations emerge. Approaching an increasingly disconcerting, imperfect effect, the artists will engage the practice of partnership while confronting the impossibility of creating in true parallel.

This is the first public collaboration between Hewitt and McFadden, and their respective investigations of public space and private life generate a dynamic review of human interaction. As the relationship between the artists, the public, and the space develops, the constructed environment will become progressively more complex. These idiosyncrasies of interface, generated by process-based, active creative practice will set the tone for future projects at Recess.

Session invites artists to use Recess’s public platform to combine productive studio space with dynamic exhibition opportunities. Sessions remain open to the public from the first day of the artist’s project through the last, encouraging sustained dialogue between artists and audiences. Due to the process-based nature of Session, projects undergo constant revision and the above proposal is subject to change.