all up in his brain: ward shelley

i have been meaning to post about the work of ward shelley since i saw it last month at the decordova museum and sculpture park. some of the work that he has exhibited there is called who invented the avant-garde (and other half-truths). shelley's work is about archiving of information, and he handles this topic in a way that is  a bit absurd, but also fun, and kind of profound. interacting with his work is kind of like being inside of his brain, especially when you see the boxes installation... wow. more on that in a bit.

the first part of shelley's work displayed at the museum is a series of of crazy-ass wordy flow charts, having to do with popular culture and art and many connections that can be found in their histories.  this one is an investigation that stems from andy warhol's chelsea girls. definitely click on the image below.

now... the boxes. the decordova houses this installation entitled archive (which, by the way, is a collaboration with fluxus-ish artist Douglas Paulson) in their reading room. you walk into the room and you are surrounded by ceiling high piles of orange boxes with white labels. some of my favorite labels read as follows:

-oatmeal cookies (in here)
-what is smegma really?
-steve's old bong collection
-sensible careers for ethical idealists
-shameful music preferences
-list of people who will never be more than assholes
-essay on "no you didn't"
-32 reasons to never leave your home
-after you open this box everything will be different
-where we left the white man's burden
-large foam finger
-as yet unanswered prayers
-don't forget to shut up and listen for a while
-never fail conversation enders
-is loyalty really a virtue?

and so on and so forth... there are hundreds of these boxes, it would probably take all day to look at them and yet another to list them. all in all, the archive is funny and it ends up stirring the viewer more than they might expect. i think most people can find at least a few dozen labels that they can relate to, and chuckle or sigh over.

i only had my cell phone camera on me, so i have yet to retrieve the images. but the room itself looks something like this (except that it is feels quite a bit smaller, and there are bookshelves with art books on them in there too):