Catharine Czudej

Ball Polisher

May 14 - June 18, 2017

'Ball Polisher' is a show of new installations by Catharine Czudej consisting of hand-made booby traps affixed to motion sensors interacting with homemade ball polishers. The perfunctory weapons, modeled after those employed by the Viet Cong, utilize the likes of sharpened rebar, concrete and coffee cans. Combining the effects of rudimentary guerilla warfare with those of suburban American life, the works evince a sensibility of paranoid self-sufficiency and scabrous DIY survivalism.
Czudej borrows tricks of the trade from lone wolf YouTube gurus. In fear of extinction, these ex-hippies, or practicing eagle scouts… let’s call them dudes with cameras... take to the internet. Yes there are communities of like minded people brought together on the internet every day. There are also individuals reaching out with their strange agendas and appendages, posting videos and cultivating a thing with zero response, little to no interest at all. What was once a private maneuvering of things in garages and basements is now streaming live. The traps are a survival mechanism, the ball polishers are what you do after you survive.
Czudej’s work encompasses sculptures, installations, paintings and films which reflect her occupation with labor, power dynamics and moral structures. Her art is characterized by its humorous approach and absurdist take on the everyday. Responding to canonized ideas or phenomena, the artist sets off a chain of free associations linked to the cultural subconscious in an attempt to implicate the viewer in her conspiracy.

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Jeffrey Stark

88 East Broadway
Space B11
New York, NY 10002

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