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Peculiar Slant
at Iowa  

September 13 - October 19, 2025
Crown Heights, Brooklyn, New York City

Titled after a phrase in the John Ashbery poem, Self-Portrait in a Convex Mirror, in which he states: “But your eyes proclaim that everything is surface. The surface is what’s there and nothing can exist except what’s there,” Peculiar Slant is an investigation of surfaces, in particular performance surfaces. Elements and structures typically relegated to the periphery, displaced and distanced from the central dramatic or musical action—like the stage, the backdrop and the scrim—are put into focus, promoted to the actor. Translucency and mirrored images repeat themselves, producing a distancing effect that is flattened and becomes pure visuality, like the kaleidoscopic piano players from a 1930s musical morphing into a screen-like façade during a choreographed sequence. Musical notation and “stuttering” distorted words (cut from translucent plastic) are set against and play off of interior architectural spaces, sourced from Youtube screenshots of an orchestral performance, an artist talk, and a personal photo taken of a theatrical backdrop in downtown Toronto.