Jacques Louis Vidal
I Have Some Very Special Trunks To Share
April 29 through June 3, 2012
In conjunction with our new beginning, we are extremely pleased to present New York-based artist Jacques Louis Vidal's first west coast solo exhibition I HAVE SOME VERY SPECIAL TRUNKS TO SHARE.
In his work Jacques Louis Vidal is known for creating and subverting a variety of enclosed mechanical and architectural forms such as closets, boxes, doors, fences, and walls. Examining the nesting compartments of personal identity, and studying the joints, hinges, passages, pathways, impulses and practices by which personal identity reveals and conceals itself, Vidal creates sculptures and assemblages, drawings and collages that diagrammatically map the very processes of this revealing and concealing. Simultaneously radiating a sense of paranoia, humor, and melancholy Vidal has described the objects he creates and is attracted to as “things which have or had a specific purpose from which they have been separated”.
For I HAVE SOME VERY SPECIAL TRUNKS TO SHARE Vidal has built three trunks that serve core functions for his archetypal travelers: the auto-psycho-biographical Kemist, Kolorist and Konman. We may regard these three, in a key way, as emblems of the psyche residing within the artist himself. The traveler’s identity and personality is implied and reflected by their trunks. The latched enclosures reveal their various symptoms, strategies and skills by unfolding and telescoping outwardly, and by fully coming apart in certain critical places. Vidal’s trunk is the traveler's expansive architecture that houses its movement toward discovery and participation in a new and uncharted place. Ultimately these “very special” trunks exist beyond the metaphors that inspired their foundation and sway in and out of known forms.
On exhibit from Sunday April 29, 2012 until June 3, 2012 Jacques Louis Vidal’s site specific exhibition was built and packed for travel in his Brooklyn studio, to set up in his temporary working and living space, the Los Angeles destination know as TEXAN EQUITIES.
Audio recording of Jacques Louis Vidal being interviewed while sleeping by then girlfriend Stacey Velasquez 01/13/1998:
Stacey: Jacques, you've been talking again and you told me to record it, so I'm going to ok?
Me: just another fuck up, everybody is talking about it
Stacey: ok, I'm just going to record it, ok?
Me: HEY! Get those boxes back that I (inaudible 10s) Stacey: what boxes Jacques?
Me: I know they got moved! Thats because I moved! Knew I couldn't trust anyone (inaudible) just because you carry a bomb doesn't make it so I don't have any memories
Stacey: you can trust me, I don't have a bomb
Me: wai..wai.wait LOOK! I'm not going to be in here forever ya know...when I get outta here (inaudible 20s) someone is gonna get a feeling about what happened in ( inaudible 2s) and you know I've been looking for those boxes but they won't let me outta here.
Stacey: why can't you get out Jacques?
Me: I was given a gift...and I've been waiting to say something about it because because ya know I knew... I've been, nature gave me a (inaudible 3s) There's certain parts of this big box over here inside the inside, ya know
Stacey: what's inside of it Jacques?
Me: oh I know you don't want to listen really! I'm cool though I've been (inaudible 4s) This box wasnt made with me in mind but I made it.
Stacey: I do want to know, what's inside of it Jacques?
Me: sounds like somebody's been talking
Stacey: talking?
Me: I had the three boxes in mind, you know how I like it...(inaudible 2s) not willing to do to keep everybody happy
Stacey: why do you keep talking about boxes Jacques?
Me: (long pause slight wimpering) I just wanted to find it so I could show you (long pause high pitched sound)
Stacey: aww, Jacques, what did you want to show me?
Me: from when I was in Huntsville
Stacey: Huntsville?
Me: ye, I was in the prison in huntsville (trails off inaudible 5s) there were three reasons
Stacey: what were they?
Me: i was on the road selling some stuff n I was stupid n I was testing everybody, ya know, and I had some things I kept, and they were inside these bags
Stacey: bags?
Me: the boxes! Inside the case bags, everything I was looking for and they moved them cause they could, and if I could find me I could figure (inaudible 10s) n wow its not like I didn't try
Stacey: what was inside the boxes Jacques, just tell me?
Me: all the ideas... and it was gonna be good when I got home, cause I could tell them about all the thinking and it was gonna turn into an uphill motion.
Stacey: what ideas?
Me: (defiantly) just trust me, they're good...really good
