Progress: Ape Language Acquisition show at Figure One and State of the Studio

This is what preparing for the show at Figure One gallery did to my studio:

When I came in that morning, I really thought that someone had raided my studio or maybe tried to rob me, until I realized I did this to myself. 

Just a few images of what the show looked like.

Obviously, this isn't everything that was documented, but it gives a sense.

Some written description

And I thought this might be a good place to put the writing that I've done about this show since then. The following is the description I gave for this piece in a grant application written in June of 2011.

Language Acquisition Project
This solo exhibition was created as part of the University’s juried Ten to Watch series, and centers around representative individuals from each of the four great ape species (not including humans) to discuss controversial ape-language research.

Four small charcoal portraits of these legendary individuals are labeled both with their genus and species name, as well as their given name – Koko the gorilla, Kanzi the bonobo, Chantek the orangutan, and Washoe the chimpanzee. Each portrait has a corresponding text-based piece on the opposing wall, demonstrating the kind of language work done with that particular animal, such as a key of Koko’s American-sign-language-based signs, or anecdotes about Chantek’s conversations with researchers. These documents indicate the limitations of language as well as the difficulty in characterizing what can be legitimately said about interspecies communication.