THE METASCHEMATIZONS zine/show catalog

8/3/2019 THE METASCHEMATIZONS zine/show catalog

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BOYS BE GOOD.ThE METaSchEMaTizOnS





ThE METaSchEMaTizOnSc u r a T E D B Y c h r i S T O p h E r c u n E T T O

& J a S O n E D w a r D T u c k E r

S p E c i a l T h a n k S — i n n O p a r T i c u l a r O r D E r

Amy Morton, Drew Ransom, Mark Guenther, Bill Smith, John Moletress,

Brian Cox, Andrew Fogle, Joe Remy, Raymond Kampf, Matt Rose,

Seth Halpern, Miriam Cutler, Daniel Rampulla, Eleanor Barba, Emilia Olsen,

Jane Pierce, Emily Krzyzanowski, Rupert Cole, Justin Epiphany, Stephanie Arnet,

Jeff Herrity, Christian Engley, Joseph Rodriguez, Kim Cunetto, Chris Walker,

Rene Mauricio Medrano, Armando Lopez Bircann, Nicholas Abriola,and Ms. Barbara Leathers.



ThE METaSchEMaTizOnS a n i n c O M p l E T EM a n i f E S T O O n c h a n G E

Change. It is in every song, opera, movie, advertisement,

television show, memory. It is the root of conict, love,

community, basic life. We gather around transition,

surrendered to it.

THE METASCHEMATIZONS is about this and that.

The nothing, the in-between, the everything, this living

metamorphosis. A great work of art denes the humanand monumental poetry of transition.

The Boys introduce themselves as a small tribe of coping

with ux. What is different now, though, is the choice.

We are no longer victims of imposed alteration, but

participants. The moment when we decided to embrace

the ignorance we saw as a void was the day we married

change. The emotional stridency of this milestone is

shared, and contagious. We all bring unique tools and

perspectives to address the nuances living inside inces-sant reconstruction.

We are many.

We aren’t the rst to live this way,

we aren’t the last.

a B O u T T h E M O V E M E n T

a n D c u r a T O r S n O T E S

The work you see in this publication and the work inthe exhibition combine to form what we see as one

episode in a series of creative investigations. This zine

is a summary of the work displayed on the walls of the

gallery created by queer collective Boys Be Good, in

addition to transient contributors whose work is centered

around the thoughts, theories and moments embodied by

THE METASCHEMATIZONS. The inspiration was an

experience all of us have had in Boys Be Good and

necessary for an open queer life: coming out. With the

work we hope to both commemorate this specic trans-

formation and expose the ubiquity of change for all.



It isn’t our goal to provide answers,

but to ask questions that help us arrive

at more meaningful, and honest conclusions.

Quentin Smoking in HiS ApArtment, DaniEl raMpulla



6

i , ii , And i ii , STEphaniE arnET.



ThE SuBliMEB Y r u p E r T c O x

They say it all started with the one, with the word

and now what we say well we could end the world

Trafc light stop and the universe explodes Feel the love the web that what moves us the most

Aoat in the ether my body needs neither the clothes nor this bling sir

tell me you feel the sky wrap around you

feel us in sync let it touch you and move you

The holy vibration

the one syncopation that began this vacation

from reason the reason the reason for us

well we might never know

just feel the ebb and the ow let it come let it go

and pay mind to our vectors

cause they cross in all sectors

Yeah move closer man cause I’ve seen the sublime

it’s a game of checkers

it’s the rock of a cradle

that astrological ladle

it’s breakin’ free from those labels

smell it in the wind

felt it in the sand

saw it in your eyes

yeah I saw it in your eyes

so baby move closer yeah I’ve seen the sublime

I’ve seen the sublime yeah I’ve seen the sublime

Knock your glass off the table cause theres one in the cupboard

whatever costume it’s in from the Torah to Hubbardinside it’s the same inside it’s insane

just feel it let it see you

It’s no thing it’s eternal temporal holy and immoral

it’s good and it’s evil it’s a beat in a free ow

it’s a stranger it’s home it’s the sound all around some call it the great “om”

It’s in happiness and depression

and especially adolescence

Its the sum of expressions your hunches when you’re breathless

it’s between justice and crime it’s when we got love on the line

babe come on get closer I’ve seen the sublime

yeah I’ve seen the sublime

come on get closer

yeah I’ve seen the sublime



MY MOThEr waS a MErMaiDB Y E M i l i a O l S E n

My mother was a mermaid and that would explain why

that as a child i curled up in water like leaves and followed

currents as if i knew where they’d lead

my mother was a mermaid and that would explain whypuberty was so painful and my knees would ache from

standing straight, and i was destined to be awkward because

i know i was never meant to walk on pavement, and that

has to be why i feel like the ocean is home despite having

been raised on land surrounded by land

my mother was a mermaid and i wanted to shed skins like

seals and hide in reeds like otters and speak a silent language

with whales. my mother was a mermaid and that’s why my

hair feels like an extension of my skin rather then just anaesthetic.

i wanted to hide under sea shells rather then just under tiled

roofs and i wanted the sun to shine in dappled spotlights

ltered by waves rather than just sunglasses.

my mother was a mermaid and she let me go and i can

barely swim without being afraid of drowning. i remember

the wave that cast me out and over, looking wide eyed up

through my water at my real mother, shocked by my own

surprise.



Untitled i , JANE PIERCE



1 0

TOp: Love Sonnet 71 , J u S T i n E p i p h a n Y

BOTTOM: Love Sonnet 13 , J u S T i n E p i p h a n Y



JoSepH, mobiL e , DaniEl raMpulla



HeAddreSS , J E f f h E r r i T Y



wOrMhOlEE l E a n O r B a r B a

When I was younger, I kept

a pumpkin on a high shelf

from Halloween, it seemedunchanging until I saw it in summer

and it was collapsed in on itself.

As if that wasn’t enough

of a reminder that this isn’t everlasting

a fat woman is telling me, now,

not to wait to have

kids.

*********

If the 21st century is

a disease then I’ve been looking

for a cure for 20 years and have

had no success. Wormhole.

Breastfed nostalgia is

the only cure, perhaps,

but I haven’t found the right teat.

*********

We invented touch screen phones

so we didn’t have to touch our wives

or our children anymore.

I’m still trying to nd the right

charger that will plug into the ash tree

out front that died so many years

ago.



POEM

C H R I S T I A N E N G L E Y

it stts t sometg sme. i m ee

wt tee sod voes deg oom

To oom t yo, mgg e e te

as e sed te sts. comsso d e

ae ove o myt, tey oom

Tt stts t sometg sme: i m. hee

Te oom s sed sde. a q es

uo tbe oomg e tomb

Unflled. The broom that tidies each new tier

is Evey Boom. Te tg dee

Begs to dm s otsde oes boom:“we e ot sometg sme!” c yo e

Te seg o s? no stee,

Stge testes be do. E e osmes

its d. rooms see oto d se e tes.

cé es, bt ot bd, ts qee

Dese to bd ose tt’s ot ome.

Stt smy: be o es. i m ot ee

To om t yo. imge, ese, my tes.



devin in pA rk , DaniEl raMpulla



1 6

devin , DaniEl raMpulla



Love Sonnet 47 , J u S T i n E p i p h a n Y



papa'S hOuSEE M i l i k r z Y z a n O w S k i

sve soo moted dg, mots ve

ete yo ome. yo ts. yo boes.

yeed to yo. yo e bette o o t

oes yo boots.



pApA'S Hou Se , EMilY krzYzanOwSki



C H R I S T O P H E R C U N E T T O

If his drawings are any indication, it is easy to imagine

Cunetto as an obsessive. Meticulously and realistically

wrought—though in an elusive way "off"—the work comes

across initially as saccharine. Endearingly so. Reminiscent of

both Disney and Paul Cadmus, the images can't quite decide

if they are sincere or not. Or, perhaps they are sincerely fab-

ricated. The works are primarily narrative, colorful vignettes

of young doe-eyed men staring into space, just-as-colorful

gures standing nude in abstracted forests or clouds; all seem

to suggest a point of tension between drama and camp. Nar-cissus, an easy target for a gay artist, comes off particularly

sweet. But that's where Cunetto gets you: even in the midst of

his own demise, owers metastasizing out of his skin, sweet

Narcissus remains aloof. In Thickets, the artist calls attention

to the great Tension between life and lightness and death and

transition. The gure bright, perhaps cut up and bleeding, but

proud and present even in darkness. In these images, igno-

rance is bliss. The tiny pencil is an interesting choice to ren-

der such large narrative imagery—some stories known and

some seemingly more personal. This gesture of something

so small becoming something much, much larger—Cunetto

points to ways in which we may decide to cope with our

biographies and communicate our stories. Make them bigger.

R E N E M A U R I C I O M E D R A N O

Supercia can be viewed as a question. The "feminine

ephemera" used to create the work is simultaneously

indulgent and critical of the symbols and accoutrement

associated with our ideas about women and superciality.But does the piece advocate one position or another?

Formally, the work hangs—pertly. A symbolic fruit,

stimulating a connection to the story of Eve. Perhaps even

a critical feminist re-imagining of the forbidden fruit, this

time bringing peril of a different nature. We start to wonder

what is inside this fruit. What we see is just the outside, but

isn't the sweetest part of the fruit its ripe esh? Again, we

stumble into a tting metaphor. As the piece begins to raise

questions of interior space versus exterior appearance the

viewer is led to question the relationship between the two.

The key here is the transformation of these feminine objects

from a state of hallowed, clean newness into a distorted and

complicated exterior.

BOYS BE GOOD.C O L L E C T I V E W O R K – A R T I S T N O T E S



C H R I S WA L K E R

Chris Walker's images of young men seem at once gentle

and harsh. The images initially seem to be treated so tenderly,

gently formed from sometimes clumsy looking brush strokes.

You can't help but see these works as a kind of reverent fun-

neling of naive voyeurism into a group of sincere, devotional

portraits. A moment longer with the work, though, and the

stunted, chunky mark-making and neon hotspots are a techni-

cal gesture that hint at something more conceptually turbu-

lent. The compilation of images are originally sourced from

disposable camera snapshots submitted by the "boys" in thecollective. Each member was given a camera to shoot with

for a period of time, hopefully capturing (whether sincere

or not) variations of their still-adolescent vulnerability. All

pictures in varying degrees include the gure. What Walker

does to these images amounts to a kind of surrogate for

intercourse—a way to experience the men in his group that

requires both the assertion and the submission of his ego.

The texture of the paint providing a physical, experiential

understanding of the subject as the artist executes the im-

age. Dealing with source pictures that, from the looks of the

paintings resultant, were both confessional and theatrical

Walker successfully reinvents them with paint—metaphoriz-

ing and commemorating the delicate dance of observation

and retort required during the reckoning of two personalities.

The tense and perhaps sinister moments in the work come

when the viewer begins to wonder with what degree of vorac-

ity and to what end the artist intends to consume and mutate

the seemingly sweet identities and images that have been

carefully submitted to him.

N I C H O L A S A B R I O L A

The haunting black and white series Untitled centers on

the transformation of the body through physical movement,

captured in stark tonality and ghostly shape, images created

by the body in motion. All of the work is captured in-camera,

ensnaring the anatomical shift with a click of the shutter,

making ghosts out of what was once solid. The ethereal

nature of the imagery is suggestive of not only the gure in

a state of change, but also points toward the impermanence

of the body.



J A S O N E D WA R D T U C K E R

Images that explore the relationship between disguise

and identity are common in Jason's work. The models in

his Hybridization of Choice series were strangers to him at

the time of photography, and each model was photographed

in their home. Jason provided his subjects with four options

of disguise: a horse, a bear, a fox, and a kangaroo. Each with

their own perceived animal-personality associations. The

choice the model made was a crucial point in the project—

each model became a participant in transformation. Using

masks as an augment to persona, each subject was able toexperiment with their bodies, to inhabit them with a renewed

sense of experimentation. Inside the familiar spaces of their

homes, the gures were given the chance to change how they

asserted themselves. The images serve as a kind of directed

experiment on the ways in which additions to the body im-

pact the perceived identity of a gure and how changing the

conventions involved might make way for new conclusions.

Similarly, the series labeled Metamorphose is meant to

disrupt the pseudo-instinctual way we perceive genderand identity in modern society. With the artist removing

indications of gender in the gure, the viewer is encouraged

perceive the form without bringing as many considerations

of expected identity to the table. With this, Jason is reaching

into sometimes murky disconnect that exists between us

humans and our bodies. If the image succeeds in divorcing

gender and identity from the gure, perhaps the viewer

will be able engage different ways of seeing and

interpreting bodies

A R M A N D O L O P E Z B I R C A N N

The pursuit of Bircann's work Reection seems to be the

creation of icons, collaged from what appear to be personal,

mundane and archaic sources. His video breathes pulsing life

into the visual and along with the sound that accompanies,

the artist create a space for contemplation of the icon on

screen. The compilations exist as visual poetry for personal

devotion and ritual. Bircann adds this: "As believed by the

complied wisdoms of Hermetic studies, by honing mentalenergy one can manifest positive change." And so it is.

Conceived for a specic need and person, the video will

serve as a focus for meditation and hopefully, positive

personal transformation. A statement perhaps on our own

power to create positive states of self.





We are many.

We aren’t the rst to live this way, we aren’t the last.

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