Tangled Up In You. Connecting, Coexisting, and Conceiving Identity

The multi–stranded threads of family and romance that wind their way through each of our lives are explored, celebrated, and interrogated in the 21c Museum’s current exhibition. From Louise Bourgeois’s searing childhood drama to Bill Henson’s provocative, mysterious vision of young love, to Will Ryman’s sculptural staging of an interminable Family Dinner, these works examine the tension, the tenderness, and the inescapability of our most essential relationships. We are born connected to others, as Max Streicher’s Trio in a Box so poignantly illustrates. The struggle to create a unique self fosters an endless cycle of attraction and repulsion, of defining and denying boundaries at once.

Communication, verbal, physical, and otherwise, is the essential tool for both self–expression and for connecting with others. Several of the works included examine the complex ways in which both individuals and groups speak, touch, and reach outward and inward – attempting to create and conceive a conceptual place as unique beings and in communion with others. This labyrinthine exploration of communication and individuality is examined by Kenneth Feingold’s talking heads sculpture: who is the You of the title? Is it one of the heads, or is it the viewer?Eva Koch’s evocative video Approach offers a celebratory invitation to marvel at the human drive for communication, for a communion between self and others that is seen, heard, and felt.