COVID-19
A duet by one would be no fun. Good, then, that romantic partners Shir Ende and Max Guy are exhibiting together in this aptly-titled show at the UIS Visual Arts Gallery in Springfield, IL. Though their prints, videos and floor sculptures are individually authored, many are conjointly executed, and the overall effect is of two people pushing, pulling, posing and bending in reaction to one another. The spaces framed by the limbs of Guy’s "Quarantine Yoga" sculptures, hinged black MDF cut-outs with an unsettling morbidity, echo structures made by the junctures of the artists’ bodies and the Lake Michigan horizon in a video of Ende’s. Ende’s playfully mobile screenprints of the gallery floorplan, looking more than a little bit Constructivist, form an architectural companion to Guy’s greenish his-and-hers photographic portraits, in which the artists are compressed by their reflection in a box. With so much flattening and contorted movement in evidence, it comes as no surprise to learn that most of the work here was completed during quarantine.
—Lori Waxman 2021-03-05 12:24 PM