duet: Friday, 6 March 2015

Robert Goetz (St. Louis) 

and Thomas Harris (Los Angeles)

March 6 - May 2, 2015

Opening Reception: March 6, 6pm-8pm, followed by a "Norweigan Death Metal" concert.

Every society in every time has had its masks that suited the mood of the society, from the elegance of a Venetian Masked Ball to the occidental theatrics of the Jihadi in a balaklava to the airbrushed war paint of female makeup. People want to act out a feeling inside themselves-anger, sadness, happiness, lust via the mask. It may be a sad commentary on present-day America that horror masks are the best sellers. If you know the construction of a painting, you have a wood frame and you stretch canvas over it. So that structure is kind of important, and you can't really go beyond that, eventually the image is a mask the structure wears and the face grows to fit it.  

Harris's objects are boxes and Goetz's are prints. Both sets act as masks. If you see the conventional painting frame, it's kind of thin. But in Harris's case, wood stretcher bars become a box to then stretch material over it and produce sound. His work here is loosely based on Halloween III's plot to replace children with Androids which was a low rent thriller from the first frame, including a skull, a lime-green witch and an orange jack-o'-lantern.

Goetz's prints of Apes reveal the debased primate behind the human mask. His apes exhibit the ability to imitate intelligent behavior equivalent to, or indistinguishable from, that of a human...just not a very admirable or desirable set of humans though.

Hours: Tuesday, Thursday and Saturday, Noon - 5pm or by appointment

Duet

3526 Washington Avenue

Suite 300

St Louis, MO 63103

www.duetstl.com