D'ETTE NOGLE REALITY/RELAX Jan 25 - Mar 5, 2011

PARKER JONES is pleased to present Reality/Relax, an installation by D´Ette Nogle. The exhibition will run from Tuesday, January 25, to Saturday, March 5. An opening reception will be held on Saturday, January 29 from 6 to 8pm.

Drawing initial inspiration from Dan Graham’s 1969 performance "Lax/Relax" in which Graham says the word “relax” into a microphone and breathes in and out, repeating the pattern while a thirty minute recording of a woman saying “lax” to herself and breathing in and out is also amplified, Reality/Relax consists of two side-by-side video projections showing the artist and her parents in alternating modes of reading and relaxing. Appearing together in the frame from a single point of view, the three family members read dialogue transcribed from scenes of reality television. When the artist says, “Now, let’s relax” at the end of a scene, Nogle and her parents begin a period of relaxation. When the period of relaxation begins in one projection, a second version of the scene in which roles are reordered begins in the other projection and is followed again by a period of relaxation. This pattern repeats within the looped program. A three-sided leaning rail provides the viewer with support for their own relaxation, while also suggesting an interior viewing area in relation to the projections.

A marked contrast between Reality/Relax and the respective television shows from which the dialogue is lifted is the absence of intimate confessions made to the camera by recognizable and “knowable” personalities that provide structure and propel narratives. In lieu of such confessions, Nogle and her parents engage in a state of collective action rather than a privileging of the individual “knowing” figure. Although the scenes reach an end, they lack resolution and the period of relaxation provides an opportunity for dissonance and therefore the potential for generating associative memory and meaning before the pattern repeats.

Reality/Relax follows Nogle’s participation in Says I at Parker Jones in October, 2010. She has had solo exhibitions at the Room Gallery at UCI and at Los Angeles Contemporary Exhibitions and is currently in the group exhibition Progression Minus Progress at Romer Young Gallery, San Francisco.