Christopher Burch “Somethings ..are (In) the Way of Things”
| Christopher Burch’s visual works combine drawing, painting, flocked damask wallpaper, hand painted silver serving trays, and sculpture to create a haughntinlgy surreal full scale site specific installations. The results are conflating landscapes in which historical, socio-economic and political forces that have shaped and continue to shape American racial geographies, teeter on the edge of madness.Something in the Way of Things, written by Amiri Baraka in 2008, is a disturbingly subtle and dark social commentary probing an existential crisis within the African American experience due to the inability to fully synthesize historical and contemporary racial tensions and realties . Memory and testimony (ultimately language itself) become metaphors for seeing or the inability to see. Baraka exposes, that the borders between visibility (to see, to articulate ones experiences) and invisibility (to not see, to not be able to articulate ones experiences) are at times schizophrenic.
Burch’s project for the TNF A.I.R residency is entitled “Somethings ..are (In) the Way of Things”. During the months of January 2012 and February 2012 Burch will build a full scale, on site, installatioon/environment re-interpreting Amiris Baraka’s poem “Something in the Way of Things.” Accompanying the installation of work within the Luggage Store Annex, the residency will also incorporate literary performances and dance pieces held in the Tenderloin National Forest itself. These performances and recitals will address various personal interpretations of the poem “Something In the Way of Things.” (Hours: Daily 12-5, closed Mondays)
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