Whitney Biennial 2017
Mar 17–June 11, 2017
Ajay Kurian
27
Stairwell
Born 1984 in Baltimore, MD
Lives in Brooklyn, NY
Ajay Kurian’s Childermass stretches from floor to ceiling in the Whitney’s open stairwell, stringing a series of “episodes” into a loose, almost sci-fi narrative of mutual misunderstanding and bodily anxiety. The installation is inhabited by a variety of surreal or nightmarish characters, including children who are part animal or part machine, moon men, and other creatures. Crowning the installation is a chrome chameleon that Kurian sees as simultaneously open, changeable, and tyrannical—an appropriate allegorical figure for today’s political climate. The chameleon’s eyes are optical retroreflectors, prisms that reflect viewers’ own eyes back to them. The eerie effect distills the discomfort about otherness evident in the tense, enigmatic vignettes of the installation.
Childermass, 2017
Ajay Kurian (b. 1984), detail of Childermass, 2017. Plaster, sulfur, goldstone, steel, epoxy resin, polyurethane resin, custom clothing, screen printed T-shirt, sneakers, spray paint, LEDS and duct tape, dimensions variable. Collection of the artist; courtesy 47 Canal, New York. Photograph by Ben Ganscos