Clutch Schmoozes during SAIC Crit Week

Risa Recio


Clutch gallery took a tour with me around the Graduate Painting and Drawing critique spaces for Critique Week. As I brought Clutch with me, the expected curiosity of classmates followed and not surprisingly, acted as a tool to diffuse much of the tension surrounding the studios. As classmates would come and go to discuss their critiques and talk about the harsh criticisms from their panels, their moods would suddenly change when they saw what I held.

Later that evening, I took Clutch to attend the lecture of Visiting Artist, Silke Otto Knapp, an artist originally from Austria who now lives and works in Los Angeles. Her large scale watercolour paintings allude to backdrops of a stage or theater, which became an interesting point of discussion later on in the evening when I had the opportunity to attend a dinner with her, classmates, and some SAIC faculty after the lecture. At this dinner, I presented Clutch to the table and lively discussions ensued. We discussed the surprising theatricality of the Clutch exhibition, how the carrier of Clutch must perform with it (holding, presenting, carrying, etc.) and how the viewers also perform as they interact with the gallery. The effect of Clutchwas a surprising role reversal. Where Silk Otto Knapp’s large scale works set a stage for the view, Clutch acts like a protagonist where we as the audience become a cast of characters in the performance. 

My experience with Clutch came not so much in the discussion of what was in the gallery itself, but what happened outside and around it.