COVID-19
If I were an artist, I would want to create animations like those of Selina Trepp. Actually, what I really would like is to be the animations of Selina Trepp. In her wondrously zany productions of the past few years, repurposed artworks and leftover materials come alive when no one is looking. “WHADOIDO,” made during quarantine in Chicago, features a riotously floral painting remade as a podium, a polka-dot papier-mâché base turned lady, a naughty light blue stick, and loads of other revived stuff of a fruitful studio practice. Also included is a sequence of Trepp’s delightful abstract cartoons, in which luminous lines and shapes dance across a black screen to the electro tunes of Trepp and her partner Dan Bitney. Trepp’s local Art on the MART commission—for which she’ll project her rainbow shapes across the entirety of The Merchandise Mart’s block-long façade, bringing the building’s hidden life to light—has sadly been postponed until next year. It can’t come too soon.
—Lori Waxman 2020-07-19 8:55 AM