Erin Cosgrove: What Manner of Person Art Thou?

Nearly five years in the making Erin Cosgrove will feature cell vinyl paintings, video, and a limited edition scroll at her second solo exhibition at the Carl Berg Gallery. The exhibition is a continuation of her 65-minute video titled “What Manner Art of Person Art Thou?” that is currently on exhibit at the Hammer Museum. Her show at Carl Berg Gallery, also titled “What Manner Art of Person Art Thou?” presents two characters, Yoder and Troyer, and weaves them through a complex tale of new and clashing worlds. Elijah Yoder and Enoch Troyer are the only survivors of a deadly epidemic that struck two small, adjacent colonies somewhere in the Northwestern United States. Because the completely isolated colonies’ manner of living hadn’t changed much since the 17th century, Yoder and Troyer fail to adapt to the confounding ways of the early 21st century. It is from their archaically religious viewpoint that we encounter contemporary life, its foibles and vices. The show will feature three elements including“What Manner of Person Art Thou? (Scroll),” 2008, “Mysteries of the Hertson Scroll,” (7-minute documentary video), 2008 and What Manner of Person Art Thou? (Paintings),” 2009 What Manner of Person Art Thou? (Scroll), 2008 The scroll is the supposed origins of the What Manner of Person Art Thou? video. The 15-foot scroll produced in a book form depicts Yoder and Troyer’s tale starting from the beginning of time itself and ending in apocalypse. The visual style of the scroll is evocative of the Bayeux Tapestry (a medieval French 230 foot embroidery narrative of The Battle of Hastings circa 1066). The scroll is presented as a “reproduction” of a decaying historical artifact. The lettering in both scroll and video is an update of the Latin stitched onto the Bayeux Tapestry. Instead of using a dead language that few understood, Cosgrove uses an ultra contemporary language that few understand: “leet.” Leet, or 1337, is an elite computer language used by the young and silly, or the old and nerdy. This mixture of current (digital video/leet/ink jet prints) and medieval mediums is iconographic of the medieval/anti-humanistic thinking prevalent today.