Maxwell Stephens
Essays & Catalogue Texts
Shannon Bool – I Left Calabasas, Escaped All the Ashes
SPACED OUT, Gut Kerkow, Germany
2021
The underlying sensibility of Bool’s work stems from collage, which allows the artist to explode the historic charge of the images she appropriates by recontextualizing them into unfurling constellations of associations that continuously move between what is actual and what is virtual. The works relate to the site in which they are presented, to the perspective from which they are viewed (both physically and culturally), to their materiality as objects and how they have come into being, and to their value as images in terms of their ability to circulate through various traditional and social media platforms. In the end, they engage in a struggle to grasp what might constitute beauty in contemporary culture, while – appropriately – pointing toward the eye of a beholder who would have to judge. It turns out this is a difficult and historical task, as it should be.