The Doubtful Guest (2010)

February 23 + 24, 2010 — Kill Devil Hill (Brooklyn, NY)

Participating Artists: Silvina Arismendi, Erin Beaver, Kate Burnet & Dan Woerner, Christopher Chiappa, Gabriela Galván, Jayson Keeling, and Leah Raintree.

This pop-up exhibition was held at Kill Devil Hill in Greenpoint, Brooklyn. The back room was used to present another doubtful guest, Tom Delaney, and his first solo show.

The Doubtful Guest is a group exhibition that borrows its title from the Edward Gorey classic about an unwanted guest that appears on a "wild winter night." The oddity overtakes the space, and though its curious behaviors seem off-putting at first, the residents are forced to become comfortable with it because "to this day, It has shown no intention of going away." The metaphor holds for contemporary art in general, and specifically in this instance, as the show takes over the antique store, Kill Devil Hill in Greenpoint, Brooklyn, outside the familiar art context to present the work of eight New York-based artists.

The works exhibited here have an immediate sense of domestic bliss that gives way to characteristics of the erratic disarray of the doubtful guest.  There is a tension in the selected pieces between the utterly benign and the sinister that aims to reveal the beauty apparent in controlled chaos. There will also be a special performance by Kate Burnet & Dan Woerner, and a site-specific window installation by Greenpoint-based artist, Gabriela Galván.