Untitled (House Show)

“Untitled (House Show)” was a performance and installation at Comfort Station in Chicago, featuring members of Harm’s Way, Weekend Nachos, and Like Rats. The evening began with pizza and hanging out on the lawn, in typical house show fashion, and quickly moved into the living room, where a fictional sludge band performed an improvised set in concert with the improvised performance of Ross. The duration of the performance was to be determined by however long it took to dismantle and separate the two halves of the loveseat, using household tools such as a hedge trimmer, hand saw, razor blades, hammer, ax, etc., OR until the band felt like stopping.

This show also included additional work by Nicole Brunel in the form of a fictional merch table called “All Ages Font Space”, to complete the setting. This piece is comprised of hand screened patches that read as band names, but are actually free typefaces designed to mimic the look of punk bands, and named accordingly. They were sold by Brunel on a sliding donation based scale. The projected video seen here is a special edit of the documentary “Animal Passions“, made by Ross for the performance. Click here to learn more about this video.

Untitled (House Show) was the closing event for “Whatever You Residue Don’t Leave Me”—a solo show of new work by E. Aaron Ross at Comfort Station, March 5 – March 26. The remnants of the performance stayed on display as an installation for the final 24 hours of the exhibition.

Performance, Installation
2016

More Projects

Ⓒ E. Aaron Ross 2024

Whatever You Residue Don’t Leave Me

“Whatever You Residue Don’t Leave Me” was a solo show curated by Jessie Devereaux for Comfort Station Logan Square. During the month of the show, I also programmed a screening of Kenneth Anger films with the GG Allin documentary “Hated”, titled GG VS. ANGER, and a closing event with a performance and installation titled Untiled (House Show). The press release is below, and the work list here.


“E. Aaron Ross’ show confronts the viewer with the repeated visual of decay: moldy loaves of bread encased in blocks of resin; a table top covered in shattered glass and festering milk; the mysterious monolith that reveals itself as a semen-soaked blanket.

These performance relics rally against the volatility of a constantly changing present — the cascade of moments in time that blur out what preceded.

“I don’t like thinking about things abstractly,” said Ross, “and I use my work to fight against convenient disassociation.” We naturally disassociate ourselves from concepts that cause us discomfort; but Ross’ elegant aesthetic lures us in and then confronts with the violence and absurdity of the day to day.

Ross pushes himself to uncomfortable lengths in order to communicate the universal human experience of time and decay. Wrestling grey and relative concepts into chaotic tangibility — into video, performance, and sculpture.

Whatever you Residue Don’t Leave Me is curated by Jessie Devereaux for Comfort Station Logan Square.”

HD video, bologna, nails, casing from bologna, bread, resin, plexiglas, cinder blocks, folding table, milk, drinking glasses, mini-projector, dead bird, baby blanket, semen, clay, t-shirt, safety pins

Pieces included [in order below]:
Spoiled (Video)
Untitled (Breadboxes)
Resembling The Sun
Accumulated Days
Licking the Rim of The Sun
Consumer
Spoiled (Table)
Half in a Window Closed
9 Months and Half in a Window Closing

2016

More Projects

Ⓒ E. Aaron Ross 2024

9 Months and Half in a Window Closing

After an earlier project involving a fertility test showed that my sperm count was in the “extremely low” category, I saved my semen for 9 months and froze it into the shape of a baby. That sculpture was installed on top of a baby blanket at the outdoor gallery Terraformer, in Chicago, where it remained for 8 days until it melted.

Small bits of melted clay (stuck to the frozen sperm from the clay mold used), and the melted semen itself, left behind this shape of the baby on the fabric, which has since been sealed in resin. Much in the way parents will bronze baby shoes, this is a sculpture of and a memento to my unborn child.

Resin, baby blanket, melted semen sculpture, clay bits from mold
45" x 36"
2016

More Projects

Ⓒ E. Aaron Ross 2024

Untitled (Breadboxes)

Untitled (Breadboxes) is a group of eight sculptures that contain loaves of bread in a plexiglass box, encased in resin. Since first being completed, the extent of decomposition within the resin has visibly changed for some of the pieces while not for others.

Bread, Plexiglass, Resin
2016

More Projects

Ⓒ E. Aaron Ross 2024