Kahn + Selesnick
Kahn + Selesnick
Madame Lulu's Book of Fate
Madame Lulu's Book of Fate Exhibition
What do you see when you look through the porthole of your berth aboard the ship? The raging ocean? A lone iceberg? The world as it once was, now receding into the distance? Likewise, what do you see when you peer through your telescope at the distant boat from the lonely shoreline? An approaching storm? A drowning man? Is the future drifting forever out of reach? The Truppe Fledermaus invites you to look through the portals where you shall find scenes of men and women trying to parse what is to come, speak with those departed, or findfind their pleasure amid the florid decay of a world in decline. For in a world where personal and societal mythologies supersede facts, where the promise of virtual realities threaten to supersede the real thing, what better way to approach an uncertain future than through the arcane methods of divination and clairvoyance after all, is not prophecy the original fake news?
Our latest project, “Madame Lulu’s Book of Fate,” continues the adventures of the Truppe Fledermaus, a cabaret troupe of anxious mummers and would-be mystics who catalog their absurdist attempts to augur a future that seems increasingly in peril due to environmental pressures and global turmoil. In this body of work, we also examine the notion of the carnivalesque—traditionally, the carnival was a time when the regular order of society was upended and reversed so that at least for a day, the fool might become king, the sinner a priest, men and women might cross-dress. Sacred ceremonies and normal mores are burlesqued and spoofed. During such brief times of anarchy, societal pressures were relieved by revealing their somewhat absurd and arbitrary natures. Costumes and masks were traditionally worn so everyone might have the same social status during the festival. The Truppe asks you to consider: is it the carnival that is upside-down, or perhaps the natural world that it purports to burlesque?
- Kahn + Selesnick 2020
About
Nicholas Kahn and Richard Selesnick have been collaborating as Kahn + Selesnick since 1988 on a series of complex photo-novellas and sculptural installations. Using staged photography and all media to bring their narratives to life, Kahn + Selesnick’s projects frequently depict societies in deep crisis and moments of transition. Using discovered, invented, and forgotten histories, the artists often present a post-apocalyptic vision of the world as they respond to and sometimes presage real-world events.
Nicholas Kahn and Richard Selesnick were born in 1964 in New York and London, respectively, gaining their BFAs 1986 from Washington University, St. Louis. Their recognitions include numerous grants and awards such as the Pollock-Krasner Foundation Grant, the Green Leaf Award from the Nobel Peace Center, Oslo, Norway, a NASA commission for “Mars,” and the Provincetown Arts Council Grant. Kahn + Selesnick have been part of artist residencies at the Addison Gallery of American Art, Andover, Massachusetts, the Djerassi Artist Program, Woodside, California, and Toni Morrison’s Atelier Program at Princeton University, New Jersey. Their work has been shown in over eighty solo exhibitions throughout the United States and Belgium and in group exhibitions in China, France, Germany, Monaco, and Norway. Among the exhibiting museums are the Brooklyn Museum of Art, Smithsonian Institution, Philadelphia Museum of Art, Museum of Contemporary Photography and Field Museum, Chicago, Los Angeles County Museum of Art, Overbeck-Gesellschaft, Lübeck, Germany, and Cape Cod Museum of Art. Their work can be found in the collections of the Denver Art Museum, Los Angeles County Museum of Art, Boston Public Library, Philadelphia Museum of Art, Fogg Museum of Art, National Portrait Gallery, Museum of Contemporary Photography, Chicago, the Beinecke Library, Yale University, and Museum of Fine Arts, Houston, as well as in corporate collections including Estee Lauder, Microsoft, and Time Magazine.
