Sioux City, Iowa – The Sioux City Art Center is pleased to announce its forthcoming exhibition, Shelter for Daydreaming: A Video Installation by Amy Jenkins. On view Saturday, January 17 through April 4, 2004, this will be the Art Center’s first exhibition exploring the medium of video installation art.

Amy Jenkins’s solo exhibition, Shelter for Daydreaming, features a large-scale, two-channel video installation projected onto two sides of a suspended wall in the center of the Art Center’s Main Gallery. On one side, viewers encounter the exterior view of a house slowly rocking in a vast sea. On the opposite side, viewers see the interior of the empty swaying house. Sounds of lapping water and creaky wood combined with the camera’s topsy-turvy perspective invites viewers to drift in an almost meditative or hypnotic state. Resembling a dream, Jenkins’s video installation places the viewer, as described by the artist, in a state of “in-betweeness.”

Born in Springfield, Illinois, Jenkins received a M.F.A. from the School of Visual Arts, New York City, and a B.F.A. from The Colorado College, Colorado Springs. She has exhibited extensively on both the national and international level. Recent exhibitions include solo shows at Julia Friedman Gallery, Chicago, IL; John Michael Kohler Art Center, Sheboygan, WI; Anna Kustera Gallery, New York City, NY; as well as group museum shows at The National Gallery of Art Washington, DC; Santa Fe Art Institute, Santa Fe, NM; The Salina Art Center, Salina, KS; and the Palm Beach Institute of Contemporary Art, Palm Beach, FL. Jenkins currently lives and works in Brooklyn, New York, and Peterborough, New Hampshire.

Exhibition sponsored by KCAU-TV, Sioux City, IA

Audio and visual equipment provided by Kingsbury Electronic Systems, Sioux City, IA


Opening Reception
A free, public reception will be held at the Art Center on Saturday, January 31 from 7 to 9 p.m., with a gallery talk by the artist at 8 p.m.


Video Installation Art Lecture Series
Stark Lecture Hall, Sioux City Art Center

Amy Jenkins, Video Installation Artist
Saturday, January 31 at 6:30 p.m.

Jon Winet, Associate Professor and Intermedia Area Head, School of Art & Art History, University of Iowa
Saturday, February 28 at 12 p.m.

Jeff Fleming, Senior Curator, Des Moines Art Center
Saturday, April 3 at 12 p.m.

Essay by Christopher Cook, Curator

Barton Fink, a playwright from New York City, enters an old, seedy hotel room in Los Angeles. Dark, dingy, and musty, it is exactly what he wanted, a place “a little less Hollywood.” After leaving his suitcase on the drooping bed and carefully placing his typewriter on the desk, he casually looks over the room and inspects his new, and hopefully temporary, home. Barton notices a framed picture on the wall just above his typewriter; the camera follows his eyes and tightly focuses on the picture, which shows a woman in a bathing suit reclining on a sunny beach. With her back to the viewer, she peacefully gazes out toward the ocean-filled horizon. The scene is tranquil.

As we share this restful moment, soft, gentle sounds of the sea—breaking waves, spraying ocean mist, and crying seagulls—wash the room’s silence away. Instantaneously, Barton is no longer in the neglected hotel room, but relaxing at the beach. Without notice, his reality dissolves into a watery reverie. Barton’s brief daydream unites us with his imagination, and transports us into the picture. And just as we begin to imagine that we, too, are on the beach, Barton awakes from his daydream and returns to his dull room. Reality is restored as reverie subsides.

The division between reality and illusion is surveyed throughout Ethan and Joel Coen’s film, Barton Fink (1991). The scene described above is one of many that challenges our perceptions of reality and demonstrates Barton’s frequent retreats into daydreams. His mental voyage to the beach and back reminds us of how easily our minds drift in and out of consciousness: our imaginations take control, transporting us from reality to a world that exists between states of consciousness. For most, this state of “in-betweeness” is subtle, accidental, and ephemeral. Daydreams can be wondrous and inspiring, or anxiously threatening. This space—the in-betweeness of the daydream—is what Brooklyn-based artist Amy Jenkins explores in her large-scale, two-channel video installation Shelter for Daydreaming (2001).

Upon entering the Sioux City Art Center’s darkened gallery, we see the edge of a large wall suspended from the ceiling. Hanging approximately fourteen inches above the floor, it appears to “float” in the center of the gallery. Its position physically divides the space into two equal halves. The white wall is smooth and finished, and because of its four-inch thickness, it carries a sculptural presence. Viewers must navigate around this spatial barrier, moving from one side to the other, in order to view both parts of the installation. Not only a physical barrier, the wall also suggests a psychological bridge: possibly a metaphorical crossing that weds dualities such as inside and outside, past and present, real and unreal.

Two simultaneously running videos are projected onto the floating wall, one on each side. Both continually loop. On one side, we see a tiny house slowly rocking in a vast sea. At first, the house appears to be right-side up and only partially submerged, but we begin to notice that small bubbles clinging to the water’s surface are gradually floating up. The camera suddenly brings us to the surface, and we see that the water’s edge forms a horizon line, splitting the image. Contrary to our expectations, the bottom half of the projection shows the space above the water: a bright, clear sky and a distant tree-lined shore. The top half shows the upper part of the house beneath the water’s surface. The spatial situation becomes clear: the small house is capsized, and what we once thought was above is actually below.

In combination with the flowing motion and the sound of lapping water, the video’s topsy-turvy perspective—ceaselessly shifting from above to below the water—evokes a feeling of disorientation. Our shared point of view with the bobbing camera makes us feel like we are precariously hanging onto a sea-swept buoy. For Jenkins, this effect “creates a feeling of suspension which can affect the viewer’s equilibrium.” In addition, if we stand between the projector and the wall, we cast a shadow onto the video projection. This presence of the human silhouette in the image prompts us to feel as though we are floating helplessly alongside the house. The sound, movement, and collapse of reality and representation coalesce, and our minds begin to drift into reverie.

We eventually realize that the house submerged in the water is actually a miniature Victorian-style dollhouse. As theorist and art historian Susan Stewart has explained, miniatures can activate associations of fantasy and intimacy, returning us to our childhood and the secret life of toys and make-believe. They operate as vessels that reticently hold the wonderful narratives invented by our imaginations. Once we imagine miniature objects—model cars and trains, plastic soldiers and dinosaurs—breathing, moving, and taking on lives of their own, they gently usher us into a new world, the world of the daydream.(1) With every wave and bob of the water in Shelter for Daydreaming, Jenkins’s dollhouse becomes animated, suggesting a living being.

Since the mid-1990s, miniature objects have played a vital role in Jenkins’s videos and multimedia installations. For instance, in How to Pee like a Boy (1996), a video of a male urinating is projected onto a miniature porcelain toilet hung on a gallery wall. Similarly, in her video installation Ebb (1996), Jenkins projected an image of a female bathing in red water—suggesting blood—onto a tiny claw-foot tub on the top of a ceramic-tiled pedestal. As the video progresses, the water in the tub gradually becomes clear, creating the surprisingly realistic illusion that the blood is unnaturally seeping back into her body—a reversal of the menstrual cycle. The bather then steps out of the tub and exits the projected image. Jenkins also included a real, miniature bathtub in her recent video installation Flow (2003). Described by the artist as a sequel or “sister” piece to Ebb, Flow is a nine-minute video (one minute for each month of Jenkins’s recent pregnancy) depictin g the artist taking a bath. As she shifts and turns in the water her belly gradually enlarges, eventually showing Jenkins’s full-term pregnancy. Flow reveals the personal and natural transition of the artist’s pregnant body, but the reality of the event is blurred into fiction when projected on a toy bathtub. In each of these works, the miniature object functions as a vessel: it accepts the projected image that is perfectly fitted to its edges, thus convincingly merging illusion and reality. As these two worlds converge, Jenkins invites us to see, think, and believe in miniature.

Similarly, water can also stir our imaginations, prompting us to enter the world of fantasy and dreams. In Shelter for Daydreaming, the aimlessly drifting dollhouse slowly rocks in an expansive green sea. The water’s motion is steady, gentle, and soothing. The reflection of the sunlight brightens its surface, while underneath the water’s clarity is refreshing and inviting. Bodies of water such as this have been interpreted as the archetypal imagery of the unconscious. Gaston Bachelard, in Water and Dreams: An Essay on the Imagination of Matter (1942), studies water imagery and its ability to evoke dreams. In this text, Bachelard (an author often referenced in writings about Jenkins’s work, and recognized by the artist as an influence) examines the element of water and how it engages our imagination. By studying images of water found in poetry and literature, he identifies metaphors associated with water.

According to Bachelard, for a material element such as water to engage our imagination, it must possess a duality. It must at the same time evoke good and evil, black and white, or desire and fear.(2) Water can suggest life, birth, and the rebirth of the soul, and can remind us of our beginnings in the womb. In describing the maternal properties of water, Bachelard argues that since water is the only element that can rock, we associate it with our mothers. He also notes water’s ability to carry us and put us to sleep. Contrary to its association with life, however, water also triggers images of death. In the biblical story of Noah and his sea-worthy ark, water serves to represent nature’s wrath against humankind. Taking the form of floods, typhoons, and hurricanes, water can rush through cities and wreak havoc on human life; sea-going vessels guided by brave sailors have too often never returned to port. For some dreamers, such as Charles Baudelaire in Les Fleurs du Mal (1926), water beckons them t o leave the shore’s edge and venture on an unknown journey, “O death, ancient captain, the time has come! / Let us weigh anchor!”

The imagery in Jenkins’s video carries the duality of life and death. On the water’s surface, the miniature house bobs and pulsates with life. The base of the house basks in the warm sunlight as it protrudes from the water. Its position is steady, calm, and confident. As time passes, however, the house slowly dips deeper into the sea. At first, the water only masks a few of the lower windows. Then, less and less of the house’s base is seen from above. Eventually, it slips completely below the water’s edge and gradually descends into the deep. Tiny air bubbles release from the house’s frame and quickly rise to the surface. Its dive seems expected, as though nature is taking its course. Below the water’s edge, the house is no longer in sight; it has disappeared into the world below. All that remains is the steadfast rocking of the sea.

The imagery of Jenkins’s house disappearing into the depths of the sea, leaving an empty horizon behind, recalls the final scenes of Jim Jarmusch’s film, Dead Man (1996). The metaphoric duality of water emerges in the film as the main character, William Blake (played by Johnny Depp), approaches his death. Blake’s friend, a mysterious Native American given the name “Nobody” by his elders, prepares a death canoe to carry Blake on his ultimate journey across the sea. In their final farewell, Nobody tells Blake: “It’s time for you to leave now, William Blake: time for you to go back to where you came from....Back to the place where all the spirits came from and where all the spirits return. This world will no longer concern you.” Nobody gives a slight push, and Blake’s canoe slowly disappears toward a distant stormy horizon, where the earth’s waters meet the heavens.

On the other side of the suspended gallery wall, we encounter the second video in Shelter for Daydreaming. It shows the empty interior of a house. The camera continuously sways to the left and right of a central wall that separates the house’s front hallway and adjoining parlor. Its white walls and hardwood floors look tired and bleak; sunlight pierces the closed windows and softly flickers off the well-worn floors of the vacant house. Sounds of old, creaky wood fill our ears. Similar to an abandoned ship’s wheel, the camera’s swinging motion steadily increases, causing the field of view to expand. To the left, the parlor’s far windows are revealed, while to the right, the cellar’s dark, open doorway comes into our vision. The size and scale of the interior is that of a real home: a place where a person might dwell. It clearly does not belong to the fantasy world of miniatures.

Like water, a house is often thought of as an archetypal image carrying numerous metaphors and associations. For Bachelard, the home is responsible for nurturing our imaginations and reveries. In The Poetics of Space (1958), he examines the sacred spaces of the home—the nooks and crannies that we love and cherish—and argues that we need houses in order to dream and to imagine. In naming the primary advantage of the house, Bachelard claims, “…the house shelters day dreaming, the house protects the dreamer, the house allows one to dream in peace.”(3) Tucked away in the warm, comfortable spaces of the home, our minds are at ease and free to wander into the landscape of reverie.

The interior view of the slowly rocking house in Shelter for Daydreaming also calls us to daydream. Standing in front of the projection, our eyes follow the movement of the swaying camera. Its fluid motion—left to right, up and down—invites us to drift into an almost meditative or hypnotic state. The monotonous moaning of the old wood adds to this effect. Our aural senses numb, our breathing slows, our eyelids become heavy. For a brief moment, we feel as if we are no longer in the gallery, but drifting inside the house. Unable to grasp the helm and gain control of this untethered shelter, feelings of anxiety and fear begin to surface. We think about the possibility of slipping below the water’s edge and sinking within this house to our death. Powerless to the throes of the sea, Jenkins’s house reiterates Bachelard’s observation, “A being dedicated to water is a being in flux.”(4) It is truly a wayward house, forever lost at sea.

After viewing both sides of the suspended wall, we realize that while our minds have participated in the dream state of in-betweeness, our bodies, too, have lingered in a state of transition. To fully experience Shelter for Daydreaming, Jenkins requires us to perpetually circle the floating wall. From one side to the other, we move, stop, and move again. All along, our bodies circumnavigate the suspended wall. Meanwhile our minds enter and exit the drifting house, seeing it from inside, outside, above, and below. The imagery coupled with the sounds of water and groaning wood can drive us to the edge of consciousness and lead us into reverie—a feeling described by the artist as being “in two states at once, awake, yet somewhere else in the mind.” Ultimately, we mentally and physically find ourselves in the fluid, in-between space of the daydream, where we symbolically join the ceaseless waters of Shelter for Daydreaming and heedlessly drift through the seas of our minds.

At the end of Barton Fink, Barton walks along a beach. The day is warm and bright. In the distance, he sees a woman in a swimsuit walking toward him. Dressed in a suit and tie, Barton awkwardly sits down and rests his arms on his bent knees. After a brief hello, the woman sits between him and the water’s edge, facing the ocean. The loud crashing of the waves and the crying of the seagulls fills the silence between them. As the woman gazes out toward the sea, she raises her hand to block the sunlight. Instantly, we recognize this moment as the exact image from the picture hanging in Barton’s hotel room. The beach scene that once guided him into a fleeting reverie is now part of his reality. The in-between space of the daydream suddenly collapses, thus ushering Barton into a world where dreams and fantasies come true.

Amy Jenkins lives and works in Brooklyn, New York, and Peterborough, New Hampshire.


Notes:

1. Susan Stewart, On Longing: Narratives of the Miniature, the Gigantic, the Souvenir, the Collection (Baltimore: The Johns Hopkins University Press, 1984), 54.
2. Gaston Bachelard, Water and Dreams: An Essay on the Imagination of Matter, trans. Edith R. Farrell (1942. Reprint, Dallas: The Pegasus Foundation, 1983), 12.
3. Bachelard, The Poetics of Space, trans. Maria Jolas (1958. Reprint, with an introduction by John R. Stilgoe, Boston: Beacon Press, 1994), 6.
4. Water and Dreams, 6.