Cally Spooner: Sweat Shame Etc.

Athens-based artist Cally Spooner creates an original ecosystem in her solo show “SWEAT SHAME ETC.”, composed of absurd elements which investigate the manners in which contemporary technological and financial conditions shape individuals’ life. A number of sculptures, including offset prints, 3D prints and cast metal objects, are exhibited with a special emphasis on their supports: the artist creates plinths in recently poured olive oil soap, undergoing decay over the course of the exhibition period. Along with them on view also a stainless-steel fountain, fed from its own poisonous supply of chlorinated water, a large-scale wall drawing which records hundred of data of all kinds collected over five years and the stereo audio installation “He Wins Every Time, On Time, and Under Budget” (2016). The exhibition is titled after the series of drawings on paper also on display, in which some sketched human figures are represented while taking care of their bodies, with their heads scratched out.

Swiss Institute Reading Room hosts, in conjunction with the exhibition, a three-week programme of activities led by OFFSHORE, an itinerant performance company laboratory and pedagogical structure initiated by Cally Spooner in 2017.