Andrea Jonna Charuk completed her second weekend as Orvis Artist in Residence at Spalding House on Sunday. Her project Take the Bait is a sweet, sticky testament to the humble ant’s keen sense of smell, love of hiking, and voraciousness. Like Damien Hirst, Charuk plays phrases off dead things that were once alive. (Hirst’s Away From the Flock featuring a sheep floating in formaldehyde never fails to make me chuckle.) Her in-progress Tough Luck, featuring a decaying baby bird she found on the museum grounds (“So many babies all over the place,” says curator of education Aaron Padilla, “and if they fall out of the tree, they’re done.”) is at once gruesome and hilarious.
See how Charuk makes these works, ask her questions about her concept, maybe bait some ants yourself—she’ll be working on site through June 3:
Saturdays April 28, May 5, 12, 19, 26, June 2: 10am-4pm
Sundays April 29, May 6, 13, 20, 27, June 3: noon-4pm
Then tell us what you think about Charuk’s project, or how it makes you feel.
ps: Charuk’s statement reveals that her project is about outsourcing labor. I revisited Aaron Padilla’s insightful post about the “art gap” to understand what it means that my response to this artwork is different from the artist’s vision.