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Intern Exhibition: Mary Pedicini

Studio Art Intern Mary Pedicini's show Imaginary Tyrants is currently on display in the Barrows Rotunda. For those who cannot see the show in person, the Studio Art Photography Fellow Tian Yang has taken some photographs.

  • The image shows 7 objects, all in varying wood shades. In the foreground, a vase, a small round object, doorknob, shoe mold, waterbottle. In the background attached to the wall, two blocky curved hooks are adhered.

    Pedicini, Mary. Imaginary Tyrants. April 2020. Photographed by Tian Yang.

  • Image shows the Barrows Rotunda, with two ends of a canoe rising vertically. Many small objects appear to be nailed to the inner hull.

    Pedicini, Mary. Imaginary Tyrants. April 2020. Photographed by Tian Yang.

Imaginary Tyrants. 2020. Partial canoe, plastic and metal machine parts, plastic and wooden children's toys, doorknob, cobbler's shoe form, piece of pipe organ, glove, tiara, small thurible, scientific equipment, and grape-stained organza gift pouches. Installation dimensions 168" x 168" x 78".

 

What would life be if we had to prioritize only one: thinking or being? I've met people who seem to favor one party or the other: the bad either excruciatingly self-reflective or superficially active, the good content in a deep understanding of their own complexity or else profoundly in touch with nature, or some chosen work. Recent influences have instilled in me a desire to make a definitive choice between the two. While I debated intellectually, I built this piece. It's a pair of shrines: a place to worship both ideas, and to manifest an intuitive debate. To do so, I created a simple game for myself with the objects in my studio. On impulse alone, I had to choose objects from all my various piles and determine which camp each fell into. As usual, I endow matter with far too much initiative. 

 

In the end, I couldn't choose one way of living over the other for myself. No human can fully renounce either party, anyways;  I've accepted that it's a false dichotomy. What's left is a record of a thought process: some sort of research.