Flutter

2010 - Installation (Installation)

Zarouhie Abdalian


The first iteration of Flutter was specifically conceived for the Pro Arts Gallery space in Oakland in 2010, viewable from the public space of a sidewalk, and the version acquired by the Kadist Collection is an adaptation of it. The work consists of a mirrored structure with a hidden motor that vibrates every so often. In this play of mirrors, the viewer first encounters their reflection, but in time the vibration distorts the image, making self-recognition impossible and suggesting the fragility of identity. Flutter ’s reflective surfaces also evoke the architecture of office buildings that shake just so in an earthquake. The sidewalk is a built environment and a social space rife with extreme fragility and it exposes economic inequity and systemic racism writ large. In the San Francisco Bay Area, the compounding forces of COVID-19 and the climate crisis have spurred a seismic shift in social life. Storefront windows, as across the country, have become a contentious space further driving apart the public and the private. During protests and social uprisings, boarded up windows of the former shells of buildings are transformed into political and collective murals and communal vision boards, reclaiming the sidewalk. Abdalian reflects in 2023 the conditions surrounding Flutter: Flutter was conceived as a context-responsive installation at a gallery in downtown Oakland, CA, during the summer of 2010 as residents braced for the verdict in the case of Johannes Mehserle, the cop who murdered Oscar Grant. In windows that face a pedestrian walkway, mirrored mylar quivers, ripples, and shakes in response to subaudio sine sweeps transmitted through tactile transducers. The actuated surface of the mirror visibly destabilizes the environment in which the work is situated, reflecting a status quo open to rupture. Installed in 2023 in San Francisco’s Mission District, the unstable image reflected in Flutter belies the relative calm pictured at KADIST’s 20th Street location. Banks are liquidated, layoffs are announced, and ever wider wars for capitalist profit loom. Rupture is the unavoidable expression of an unstable system. Here, viewers encounter their reflection within this process of inevitable change.


Colors:



Hydroforce
© » KADIST

Liz Cohen

2011

From among a cloud of fake smoke we see a heavily pregnant Cohen wearing a bikini and golden stilettos with lace-up straps wrapped around her legs, grasping onto the frame of a modified car as its loud hydraulic system clumsily moves it up and down...

Lowrider Builder and Child
© » KADIST

Liz Cohen

2012

The photographic work Lowrider Builder and Child is a companion piece to the video Hydroforce , which features Cohen in the late stage of her pregnancy posing atop a German car that she transformed into a lowrider in a period of ten years...

South Africa Righteous Space
© » KADIST

Hank Willis Thomas

2014

South Africa Righteous Space by Hank Willis Thomas is concerned with history and identity, with the way race and ‘blackness’ has not only been informed but deliberately shaped and constructed by various forces – first through colonialism and slavery, and more recently through mass media and advertising – and reminds us of the financial and economic stakes that have always been involved in representations of race....

No Title
© » KADIST

Félix González-Torres

1992

Behind the simplicity and beauty of this untitled photograph of a brilliantly-colored flowerbed by Félix González-Torres are two remarkable stories of love, loss, and resilience...

Related works featuring themes of: » Contemporary Conceptualism, » Contemporary Participation, » Film/Video, » Found Objects, » Immersive  
» see more

Calendars (2020-2096)
© » KADIST

Heman Chong

2012

The work Calendars is composed of 1001 images of deserted public areas in Singapore printed on pages of a calendar set from the year of 2020 until 2096...

The Book Cover series
© » KADIST

Heman Chong

2009

With a habit of reading eight to ten books at the same time, Chong paints his two-foot tall novel covers through referencing an extensive reading list (accessible on Facebook) he has kept since 2006...

Wherein one nods with political sympathy and says I understand you better than you understand yourself, I’m just here to help you help yourself
© » KADIST

Yee I-Lann

2013

Sarcastically titled to call attention to the problematic notions underlying colonialism, this photograph shows hundreds of Native Malaysians seated quietly behind one of their colonial oppressors...

Nothing New
© » KADIST

Oded Hirsch

2012

Oded Hirsch’s video work Nothing New (2012) utilizes seemingly absurdist tropes to raise more trenchant questions about communal action and collective identity in modern day Israel...

Other related works, blended automatically  
» see more

Calendars (2020-2096)
© » KADIST

Heman Chong

2012

The work Calendars is composed of 1001 images of deserted public areas in Singapore printed on pages of a calendar set from the year of 2020 until 2096...

The Book Cover series
© » KADIST

Heman Chong

2009

With a habit of reading eight to ten books at the same time, Chong paints his two-foot tall novel covers through referencing an extensive reading list (accessible on Facebook) he has kept since 2006...

Tarantism
© » KADIST

Joachim Koester

2007

Tarantism is the name of disease which appeared in southern Italy, resulting from the bite of a spider called Tarantula...

Canton Novelty
© » KADIST

Fang Lu

2016

Canton Novelty by Fang Lu captures the adventure of a group of three girls, Ruohan, Lily and Zoe on a summer vacation in Guangzhou, China...

Related works sharing similar palette  
» see more

The West Hollywood Artist Who Immortalised LA’s
© » ANOTHER

The West Hollywood Artist Who Immortalised LA’s Golden Boys | AnOther A new exhibition in New York showcases the work of Kenneth Kendall, an artist who sculpted James Dean, Marlon Brando and more in the bohemian atmosphere of late 20th-century Los Angeles February 06, 2024 Text Miss Rosen Back in the 1950s, Hollywood’s fabled Melrose Avenue was still a sleepy street home to cabinetmakers and print shops catering to the local community...

90022 (Leonard Ave)
© » KADIST

Guadalupe Rosales

2022

90022 (Leonard Ave) by Guadalupe Rosales engages with memory, loss, grief, and nostalgia; themes that run throughout the artist’s practice...

Pedro Reyes
© » KADIST

Pedro Reyes speaks about Baby Marx...

Dans « Daaaaaalí ! », les inventions cinématographiques de Quentin Dupieux dignes du peintre surréaliste
© » LE MONDE

Dans « Daaaaaalí ! », les inventions cinématographiques de Quentin Dupieux dignes du peintre surréaliste Cet article vous est offert Pour lire gratuitement cet article réservé aux abonnés, connectez-vous Se connecter Vous n'êtes pas inscrit sur Le Monde ? Inscrivez-vous gratuitement Article réservé aux abonnés Le peintre Salvador Dali (1904-1989), sur le toit de sa maison, à Cadaqués (Espagne), en septembre 1968...

Wright Imperial Hotel
© » KADIST

Abraham Cruzvillegas

2004

Wright Imperial Hotel (2004) is a sort of bow and arrow made out of feathers, a São Paulo phone book, and other materials...

Untitled (Untitled Passport II)
© » KADIST

Colter Jacobsen

2010

The title Untitled Passport II was first used by Felix Gonzalez-Torres in an unlimited edition of small booklets, each containing sequenced photographs of a soaring bird against an open sky...

Corrupted file from page 14, (V1)
© » KADIST

Alessandro Balteo Yazbeck

2008

Part of a larger series of photographic works, Alessandro Balteo Yazbeck’s Corrupted file from page 14 (V1) from the series La Vega, Plan Caracas No...

Related works found in the same semantic group  
» see more

Untitled (Butterfly)
© » KADIST

Mark Grotjahn

2002

This particular drawing, like many of Grotjahn’s works, presents a decentered single-point perspective...

La beauté sauvera le monde
© » KADIST

Hassan Massoudy

2008

Ranging from Baudelaire to the Koran, each of Hassan Massoudy’s drawings are titled with a quotation from a text...

Zarouhie Abdalian
© » KADIST

The first iteration of Flutter was specifically conceived for the Pro Arts Gallery space in Oakland in 2010, and the version acquired by the Kadist Collection is an adaptation of it...

Safely Maneuvering Across Lin He Road
© » KADIST

Lin Yilin

1995

For his action, Safely Maneuvering across Lin He Road , Lin built a brick wall on one side of a busy main street in the city of Guangzhou...