Printer, Print Thyself

Corin Hewitt at Western Bridge.

True, it includes broken shards of Sheetrock and metal studs. But Corin Hewitt‘s Wall isn’t really a wall, but a kind of photo printing station, a messy, jumbled work area tucked into an alcove. There’s a camera on a photo stand, and a color printer nearby; yet none of them are real, but rather carefully folded paper replicas. Dozens of spent color-printer cartridges litter the desktops, along with coffee cups and tools—some real, some only representations. Looking down from the mezzanine, you can’t tell which are which. Only when you circle the untidy cubicle up close do you notice the misleading details—bits of plywood, bricks, and piles of screws lie atop their printed simulacra; extending from a metal tape measure, the yellow tape turns out to be made of paper. Since Western Bridge isn’t meant to be a permanent exhibition space (it’s scheduled to close in 2012), the notion of hacking at the walls and salvaging materials may be appropriate. Hewitt leaves a (real) Sawzall and screw gun on his work surface, as if ready to excavate more from the 3-D realm to process into 2-D. In this way, the artistic apparatus consumes itself, like a snake chomping at its tail. Don’t be surprised if, in two years, the whole gallery becomes a giant folded paper photograph of the building.