Five months ago, novelist and installation artist Matthew Jewell spent the first edition of Telophase–a periodic exhibition mounted by a loose collective of artists and writers–in bed in the far corner of an uninhabited apartment above the Inner Town Pub in Ukrainian Village. Smoking and reading aloud, he enacted scenes from Scale, his novel in progress about a man who never leaves his room and meticulously documents the rotation of his bed around a fan.
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Named for the last phase of mitosis before a cell splits into two new cells, Telophase is an attempt by the group’s members to create a new way to present artwork that merges language with imagery and live performance. “Everybody here is trying to work in interesting ways that are not necessarily traditional text and/or readings, and to complement that there’s visual art that has a narrative aspect,” says Odie Lindsey, one of the organizers. “There has to be a narrative quality that sort of falls between these two spheres.”
For the next event, “Paper or Plastic,” organizers want to further break from the dynamic of traditional readings by having tour guides lead people through the exhibit, interacting with installations as a character or persona–a French art critic, say, or a waiter at Bennigan’s.
