Glenn Kaino USA, b. 1972
NO TRESPASSING, 2017
Neon
Approx 41 x 52 x 2 1/2 in
104.1 x 132.1 x 6.3 cm
104.1 x 132.1 x 6.3 cm
5919
This piece is part of a series of neon works Gelnn Kaino created for the exhibition Signs at Kavi Gupta in Chicago. Viewers are simultaneously insiders and outsiders in the...
This piece is part of a series of neon works Gelnn Kaino created for the exhibition Signs at Kavi Gupta in Chicago. Viewers are simultaneously insiders and outsiders in the neon works, which depict variations of texts commonly associated with property signs. Inspired by the urgent dialog about who owns the right to tell stories of marginality, these artworks suggest that the answers are not always the same, that context and expression matter. The signs are hung so the text reads backwards from the wall, positioning the viewer behind the sign and inside the territory that the sign is meant to defend ownership of—a traditional unfamiliar and uncomfortable position for an agent of postcolonial thought operating from the margins. This gesture of complicity is unshakable, there is no room or way to be back on the outside of the sign. However, should the viewer take a selfie, the text is magically reversed and the viewer seemingly is positioned externally in relationship to the text. The very action of a selfie—one’s desire to express a position in a social environment—reverses the polarity of the dialog and repositions the viewer to the outside for the public to see, while in the space of the lived experience, they are inside.