Jenny Sidhu Mullins, Professor William Miller, 2011, graphite and flocking powder on mulberry paper, 43 x 31 inches. Courtesy of Flashpoint Gallery, D.C.
I’m impure. So says the interactive installation at Flashpoint in Washington, D.C. For 75 cents, it will assess your spiritual purity based on a series of dubious questions (Do you drive an SUV?, Do you recycle?, etc), flashing with lights and sirens to ensure gallery goers are alerted to the results.
The machine is part of, American Temple, the solo exhibition of artist Jenny Sidhu Mullins, featured in issue #84 of New American Paintings, and it’s her second venture into building campy objects that explore our appropriation and consumption of eastern spiritual symbols. (you can see her earlier “American Reincarnation Machine” in action here).
The show is the culmination of a year-long Fullbright research grant that sent Mullins to India to study Mughal and Thangka painting, and to a gain first-hand familiarity with the spiritual tourism market that’s thriving there. Her monkey portraits, each named after a self-proclaimed American prophet, show the results of these investigations, and the (colorful) location of your chakras.
More of Mullins' work after the jump. —Matthew Smith, DC Contributor
Jenny Mullins, American Temple (installation views), 2011. Photos courtesy Flashpoint Gallery.
Mother Anne Lee, 2011, graphite and flocking powder on mulberry paper; and detail of Mother Anne Lee, 2011.
Jenny Sidhu Mullins, Captain Applewhite, 2011, graphite and flocking powder on mulberry paper; and detail of Captain Applewhite.
Jenny Sidhu Mullins: American Temple is on view at Flashpoint, D.C., through July 23.
Matthew Smith is an artist and writer in Washington, DC and a frequent contributor to DCist.
