(link)
the question of what outside your window could be less interesting than this. You draw the shade on the world just to be mocked by this, a curtain that [shows your banality back to you.] won't let you escape banality. If the photos are by no means good, would it not be fault of the world they depict? It is your city that is ugly, and you should be forced to buy one of these as reminder that your castle not separate from. This mindset allowed for the suburbs, its devolution into ugliness, people moved in personalized containers, personal vehicles in trajectories to their big boxes sheltered, their home, their work, moved in submarines of personalized climate, protected in white walled towers. Curtains are a weak force against the world that these posit perhaps someday someone will invent something to break glass, and the world will flood in.
Modern Gothic is a mode or genre prevalent in Contemporary Art from the early 21st century to this day. Characteristics of Modern Gothic include the presence of banal, irrational, and transgressive thoughts, desires, and impulses; grotesque settings; dark humor, and an overall angst-ridden sense of alienation. While related to the Southern Gothic tradition, Modern Gothic is uniquely rooted in contemporary Capitalism's tensions and aberrations. During the 21st century, the everywhere-nowhere setting of today's post-industrial cities became “the principal region of Modern Gothic” in art. The Modern Gothic brings to light the extent to which the idyllic vision of the progressive, collectivized City rests on massive repressions of the region’s historical realities: capitalism, class, and patriarchy. Modern Gothic texts also mark a Marxist return of the alienated: the region’s historical realities take concrete forms in the city's banality of power structures that highlight all that has been unsaid in the official version of Modern history. Because of its dark and everyday subject matter, literary scholars and critics initially sought to discredit the gothic on a national level.
Modern Gothic: Morag Keil at Project Native Informant, Georgie Nettell at Lars Friedrich, Georgie Nettell at Reena Spaulings, Gili Tal at Jenny’s, Will Benedict at Overduin & Co., Merlin Carpenter at Overduin & Co.