Double Double, Protein Style, Animal Style with a Strawberry Shake and Chips
by Wyatt Naoki Conlon
November 18 - December 4, 2022
Double Double, Protein Style, Animal Style with a Strawberry Shake and Chips is the first of a series of Wyatt Conlon’s exhibitions for his newest publication. Conlon's book weaves multiple timelines, from the minutes of his grandfather’s waking hours to a photographic archive of his entire life, allowing the viewer to observe and control the subject's passing time. Through systematic collaging, Conlon creates instantaneous moments of then and now and compositions of coincidences that capture life's intimacies. Ultimately, questioning the truth of one's memory and act of recollection. In this first site-specific presentation, Soot will exhibit print, objects and video from the book–a project Conlon has been working on for almost a decade. - Hummingbirds or Hamburgers or Love – How to Measure a Life On Double Double, Protein Style, Animal Style with a Strawberry Shake and Chips by Wyatt Conlon How do you measure a life? By the number of years or months or days or minutes lived? By the number of photographs taken, government documents issued, letters written? By the number of hamburgers eaten, or the number of hummingbirds fed? By the number of people loved? And what can one life measured show us? About a historical moment, a geographic place, about choices made? What can the measurements of one life tell us about what mattered and what did not, about how to find joy, relieve pain, keep challenging? What can we learn from hummingbirds or hamburgers or love? Between January 1, 1925 and May 13, 2015, Shoichi Yoshida was alive: He woke up every day at 4am, was born in Hawaii, moved to Los Angeles, fought for America in the War Crimes Detachment in the Philippines and Japan in World War II (he ticked the ‘Japanese’ box on his registration card), married and had kids (and then his kids had kids), lifted weights, gardened, danced, played the piano, played with his kids, played with his grandkids, worked as a reflexologist, collected things (small things mainly, and things that mark time), went on holidays, listened to music, embraced change, smart phones and the internet, wrote love letters, sent valentines, hid easter eggs, decorated Christmas trees, took pictures (of his family and hummingbirds and the wide expanse of the sea), laughed, ate In n’ Out with his grandson (double double, protein style, animal style with a strawberry shake and chips), experienced joy and pain (and chose joy and relieved pain), loved his family, hummingbirds, wide expanses of the sea, also silly hats, sunsets, tradition and routine, celebrated 90 birthdays, hated the color red, was not sentimental, and went to sleep every evening at 7pm, though not necessarily in that order. In this order: At twenty to seven, a smiling, athletic teenager joins the US military, his blue steel eyes even more dashing in uniform, for about an hour. Well, to start out with, let me thank you sincerely for your very sweet, lovely, and for your very touching report and no kidding, I just love it. And by a quarter past eight, he is married, with his bride, on bicycles, on Catalina Island. By 9, there are kids and backyard inflatable pools, streamers and birthday cakes, tether ball and freshly caught fish. We build strong kids, strong families, strong communities. Time moves differently, becomes harder to tell, obscured as it is by the accumulation of growing and living. And at a quarter past 11, (nearly halfway!), he is dancing, drifting lightly into the afternoon. Between 1 and 2, a little gambling, more dancing, a funeral—then skiing, a kiss, a dinner party. May all your events end up with a positive note. By mid-afternoon, he is markedly older, wrapped in laugh lines and grandchildren learning how to lift weights and play soccer, take pictures and find joy. At 4, a pause for elegance: a double take, a second chance. Is it then or now? Who can remember which dress was which? Only that you looked beautiful. Let’s Do It Some Other Time, OK? Afterwards, he is older still, but his energy is new, his eyes youthful, hungry, learning. He massages feet now and celebrates. Time passes again, stuffed with work and ping pong and basketball. And then the evening is upon him, the last trip home, the last year, the last hour. A lei, a birthday cake, a hummingbird. Don’t be sad, he says in a bejeweled cowboy hat, with an ice cream sandwich, a wink. Ok Now. Pressed Escape. Baby, Backyard, Balloon, Basket, Basket Ball, Bathtub, Bed, Bedside Table, Bicycle, Birdcage, Bowls, Business Card, Cake, Calculator, Candle, Car, CD, Certificate, Child, Christmas Tree, Clock, Coin, Computer, Conlon, Wyatt, Corsage, Curlers, Dog, Emoji, Exercise Bike, Fancy Hinged Easter Eggs, Father, Feet, Ferris Wheel, Fish, Flowers, Food, Foot Massage, Fountain, Funeral, Garden, General Sherman Tree, Graduation, Grandfather, Hamburger, Horses in Snow, Hummingbird (late in life, when he moved into a home for seniors, his family bought him a camera, an exercise bike and a hummingbird feeder. He hung the feeder and rode the bike while watching hummingbirds. He began trying to photograph one, and after several attempts, succeeded. He emailed the image to his family, who had bought him the camera, and then threw it away, its purpose served), Ice Cream, Inflatable Pool, Kettle, Kiss, Lamp, Love Letters, Monopoly, Neatly Hung Shirts, Ocean, Palm Tree, Parking Lot, Party Hat, Patch, Peacock, Penguin, Picnic Table, Piano, Pillow, Ping Pong Table, Playing Card, Photograph, Popsicle, Post-It Note, Present, Stamps, Sand, Slot Machine, Skis, Snow, Snow Capped Mountain, Soccer Ball, Souvenir, Sunglasses, Sunrise in Maui, Tank Top, Teenager, Telephone, Text Message, Tinsel, Trampoline, Tuxedo, TV, Uniform, Valentine, Video Game, Wallpaper, Wedding, Weight, Yoshida, Soichi. His grandson brought him lunch each week and then spent years and months and days and minutes constructing a life and a day and a book (and the index of a book and a day and a life) out of hamburgers and hummingbirds and love. The life and the day and the book are the same, full of crisp moments and imprecise memories and vast gaps, and they are distinct, full of vast moments and crisp memories and imprecise gaps. So how do you measure a life? Hamburgers and hummingbirds and love - let them seep into us, the future. by Sara Knelman
Double Double, Protein Style, Animal Style with a Strawberry Shake and Chipsは、ワイアット・コンロンが10年近く取り組んできたプロジェクトである同名の最新出版物から成る、東京ーハワイーロサンゼルスをまわる一連の展示第一弾となります。 この本は、コンロンの祖父Yoshida Shyoichiが目を覚ましてから眠るまでの分単位で刻まれる一日の時間から、彼の生涯の写真アーカイブまで、複数の時間軸のイメージを織り込み、鑑賞者は被写体の過ぎ去る時間を観察し、コントロールすることが可能になっています。コンロンは体系的なコラージュにより、人生の親密さをとらえた「今と昔」の瞬間や偶然の構図を創りだしています。 この操作を通して、最終的には自己の記憶と回想行為の真偽を問うことを目的としています。 今回初めてとなるサイトスペシフィックなプレゼンテーションでは、プリント作品、オブジェ、ビデオインスタレーションの他、SOOTにて初披露となるこの本もご覧いただけます。 是非会場に足をお運びいただけますと幸いです。
