RYAN LEE is excited to present Neutral Calibration Studies (Ornament + Crime) by Stephanie Syjuco with Catharine Clark Gallery in Meridians at Art Basel Miami Beach. Neutral Calibration Studies (Ornament + Crime) is a large 20 foot wide wooden platform reminiscent of a stage set or modern day vanitas, set atop a large photographic “neutral gray” seamless paper backdrop. Displaying laser cut wooden flats mounted with digitally printed images, readymade objects, and a selection of ashen, neutral gray painted props, this alternative “still life” collapses together historical imagery with contemporary concerns. The viewer is perceptually thrown off guard, presented with what appear to be 3-dimensional objects mixed in with artificial and flat-fronted representations.
Art Basel Miami Beach | Stephanie Syjuco
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Stephanie Syjuco
Neutral Calibration Studies (Ornament + Crime), 2016
Wooden platform, neutral grey seamless backdrop paper, digital adhesive prints on lasercut wooden props, dye-sublimation digital prints on fabric, items purchased on eBay and craigslist, photographic prints, artificial plants, live plants, neutral calibrated gray paint
120 x 240 x 96 inches (304.8 x 609.6 x 243.8 cm)
Included on the platform are depictions of Freud’s analyst couch covered in ethnic rugs (downloaded from the internet and blown up to an overly-pixelated state), ancient cultural figurines also harvested from online Google image searches for Freud’s Vienna study, French Modernist designer Charlotte Perriand reclining on a Le Corbusier classic lounger, Man Ray’s famous photograph of a white female model posed next to an African mask, and peppered with patterns and textures ranging from ethnic textiles to photographic color calibration charts, Neutral Calibration Studies presents to the viewer a channel-surfing vision of connections and pathways that is anything but neutral. Indeed, Freud’s development of psychoanalysis hinged on examining trauma and suppressed narratives, and his study room was heavily populated with ethnic and cultural artifacts meant to elicit projected stories from his subjects.
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Stephanie Syjuco
Neutral Calibration Studies (Ornament + Crime) (detail)
Hidden amongst the larger components are hints of a counterstory: images of members of the Tasaday tribe in the Philippines (a group exposed later to be a fictional construct), the Black Panthers’ militant Huey Newton famously posed on a traditional Filipino rattan “butterfly chair,” Filipino ikat weavings, copyrighted stock photo images of camouflage patterns, and Turkish rugs downloaded from ebay and blown up to “real size.” A selection of both real and
artificial plants dot the installation, calling into question what we naturalize for the sake of the master narrative.
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Stephanie Syjuco
Neutral Calibration Studies (Ornament + Crime) (verso)
Upon walking behind the installation, the viewer notices that the entire backside is neutral gray, the wooden struts and fabric sandbag weights also grayed-out as if attempting to not be “seen.” The fact that the infrastructure itself is visually neutralized hints at the idea that the structure and apparatus of power that maintains historical narrative is itself a construct. Neutral Calibration Studies furthers Syjuco’s exploration into the structures of power and the alternative stories that are possible.
Stephanie Syjuco (b. 1974 Manila, Philippines) is known for her investigative, research-based practice encompassing photography, sculpture, and installation. Progressing from handmade and craft-inspired mediums to digital editing and archive excavations, her work employs open-source systems, shareware logic, and capital flows to scrutinize issues related to economies and empire. Syjuco’s multimedia social practice ties pedagogy and research to study and highlight the tension between the authentic and the counterfeit across a wide range of media, thus problematizing long-held assumptions about history, race, and labor. Initially exploring image-based processes and their implications in constructing racialized, exclusionary narratives of American history and citizenship, she has shifted her focus to the history-building and myth-making undertaken by Filipinos in their newfound independence. From critiquing images of American colonial anthropology in the Philippines, to investigating historical museum collections and shuttered newspaper archives, her projects attempt to reframe and “talk back” to the archive.
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Stephanie Syjuco
Neutral Calibration Studies (Ornament + Crime) (detail)
Syjuco’s work has also been included in solo and group exhibitions at the Smithsonian American Art Museum, DC (2024); CCA Wattis Institute, CA (2024); Getty Center, CA (2024); ICA San José, CA (2024); Metropolitan Museum of Art, NY (2024); Guggenheim Museum, NY (2024); Amon Carter Museum of American Art, TX (2023); National Portrait Gallery (2023); Saint Louis Art Museum, MO (2023); and Broad Art Museum, CA (2022), among others.
Syjuco’s work is held in the public collections of the Contemporary Art Museum St. Louis, MO; Columbus Museum of Art, OH; Contemporary Museum Honolulu, HI; Guggenheim Museum, NY; Minneapolis Institute of Art. MN; Museum of Fine Arts Houston, TX; Museum of Modern Art, NY; New Museum, NY; Portland Art Museum, OR; San Francisco Museum of Modern Art, CA; San Jose Museum of Art, CA; Smithsonian American Art Museum, DC; Saint Louis Art Museum, MO; Walker Art Center, MN; Weisman Art Museum, MN; and Whitney Museum of American Art, NY, among others.
