黑料不打烊

This solo exhibition鈥攔eferencing Jenny Odell鈥檚 2019 book, How to Do Nothing: Resisting the Attention Economy鈥攈overs between the exploration of and reflection on the Italian phrase, dolce far niente or the sweetness of doing nothing. An experimental and multi-disciplinary project, Knight鈥檚 installations throughout the gallery include new videos accompanied by wallpaper derived from the artist鈥檚 drawings, a series of polaroids with images of the artist's performances, object compositions and digital drawings, as well as a rotating platform and a wall of lottery tickets. A highlight of the exhibition is a new, in-person performance by Knight on Sunday, February 26 at 3pm.

The notion of dolce far niente is approached through the lens of Black exhaustion, labor, and expectation that pairs this sweetness with the constant work involved in manifesting liberation. How do we do nothing and also do this necessary work? Over the past few years, and recently during a year-long fellowship at the American Academy in Rome, Knight has conducted research exercises and experiments, which have enriched her understanding of this concept. In Italy, where this status of inactivity was born and remains a unique cultural phenomenon, Knight was able to deepen her experience of the pleasure of doing nothing as a research experiment. 

Throughout the exhibition, the art examines the spark or the intense motivation to do nothing and the eligibility of any action to initiate nothing. Knight鈥檚 video works reflect an exploration of nothingness in separate moments with various objects handled in ways that reject the labor of meaning. As a practice, the artist tends to use found materials within a given environment to produce collaged moments that make available individualized constructions of meaning for the viewers who choose that labor. Chosen for their ease of access, the objects鈥攁 pair of nitrile gloves, cups and bowls, a firehose, a banana鈥攁ssist in bringing to life a conversation between inertia, liveness, and sweetness. They lose and then regain their individual contexts through cycles of stillness, action, void, liveness, and nothingness. The objects are accompanied by new texts鈥攐bservations, small poems, little plays, facts, prose鈥攚ritten during visits and residencies in Kingston, Jamaica; Venice, Italy; and Cambridge, Massachusetts. They blend fact, fiction, history, memory, observation, and a nod to gesture. The production of the videos is guided by aesthetic decisions associated with other Italian cultural outputs such as the Arte Povera movement in an effort to strip down in a move towards a dolce far niente. Nothing #26 operates as a companion to concepts explored in over a decade of the artist鈥檚 live performances, where the content performs the labor of anticipation and curiosity is driven by open ended dialogue with audiences. 鈥淒oing nothing鈥� is a directive to relieve pressure on the viewer as they encounter the artist鈥檚 creative production. The viewer, through the labor of looking, decides what is worthy of seeing or what is worth the labor of the attribution of meaning.