“…this no sea of mine, that humbly laves
Untroubled sands, spread glittering and warm.
I have a need of wilder, crueler waves;
They sicken of the calm, who knew the storm.”

Dorothy Parker, Fair Weather, SUNSET GUN, 1928

Life in New York City is charged; it’s dialed to high. We love it, we hate it, we often can’t afford it. We escape, committed to finding more balance, and crawl back desperate to catch up on what we missed. It’s slick and seductive and dirty and extreme. The energy is pulsating, violent, irresistible, exhausting. It breaks us down and builds us up in endless cycles of hope and pain, desire and loss, and insatiable hunger.

Though this life of the storm sounds extreme, the seven artists in They Sicken Of The Calm Who Know the Storm examine the storm’s many facets through a range of minimalist works whose stories are quietly and slowly revealed. All exude a palpable energy and many have a violence barely contained.

Richard Garet’s electrified color-rich moving image works created through sound then silenced, refuse to be stifled and throb with an intense energy. Julia Chiang’s white ceramic chains, made all the more implausible by their handmade fragility, triumph beauty over function and challenge ideas of desire, connectivity and confinement. Greta Alfaro’s films lure one in with their serenity in the natural environment. But the underlying anxiety, generated by our own challenges with stillness and yearning for action, is soon realized in a frenzied gluttony, leaving only the remains of the day in their wake. James Clar’s alarm clock, trapped in an airtight vacuum chamber, can be seen shaking and screaming Wake UP! but never heard, rendering impotent the technology that attempts to control our desires. In the same vein, Dustin Yellin’s explosive and collapsed illusions are suspended, dissected and trapped forever. Naama Tsabar’s bed sheets turned Molotov cocktail, plays with signifiers of danger and enjoyment, boundaries and borders, temptation and destruction. And Pryce Lee’s shattered mirror and bullet pieces reflect the randomness, violence and fragility of life – our beautiful danger.

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