Joshsua Mosley's "Dread" at ICA, Philadephia

On exhibition from January 16^th- to March 29^th, Joshua Mosley’s “Dread” is a thoughtful and visually stimulating show. Upon entering the space viewers are first confronted by the dimly lit room before they approach one of the five bronze-cast sculptures that wait in the space. These sculptures exude a sense of looming fear, reflecting the dim lights off their dark bronze surfaces. The five sculptural pieces are placed white pedestals and together they provide an eerie introduction to the animated portion of the exhibition. In an animated film figures replicated in the sculptures (a dog, a cow, a beetle called Anthia sexguttato, Pascal, and Rousseau) are brought to life and interact in a thought provoking and intriguing manner. Throughout the film, the characters come across each other in different situations, each action artistically matching up to the explosions and bellows of the soundtrack. The score replaces the sounds of the world it accompanies and creates a new language for the video to speak through. This film is displayed on a large screen in a side room that seems filled with black, setting an almost all to perfect companion to the gray-scale palette of the video piece.

Approaching these pieces, I was at first struck by the lighting of the room since the sculptures seemed like ordinary three-dimensional pieces and yet their lighting was so differently and intentionally addressed than most items that are placed on pedestals and illuminated by blaring lights. Upon closer approach, each piece was ever so intelligently designed. When reading through the gallery information one takes notice to aspects such as stumps on the dog’s neck seen in “dread” are placed to show an evolutionary track, one which is also included in the four flattened areas along the sculpture of the cow’s spine. The lighting almost forced investigation into these features while also enforcing an eerie and looming sense of dread. The animation then brought these pieces to a new level of interaction showing them walking through nature, conversing, and even in physical conflict. Walking away from this specific exhibition at the Institute of Contemporary Art left me with a feeling of continued though about the figures’ actions and dialog. The video explored interaction with nature in ways that both made the viewer feel enlightened and then later uncomfortable and upset. Out of the three shows on display this one in particular placed a wonderful amount of intention and thought into display as well as interaction.

Through researching the exhibition, both through the provided gallery pamphlet and some research, it was interesting to see how the artist took a particular experience and created this grouping of pieces. Mosley was inspired and provoked by a film study featuring a dog in motion by Eadweard J. Muybridge. This photographic series shows a dog very similar to the model created by Moseley that then evolved into the story seen in the video within Moseley’s mind. This work differs than most of Joshua Mosley’s pieces in that he mainly focuses on the aspects of animation, and although the sculptures were initially clay models used for 3-D modeling purposes, their inclusion as distinct pieces set this particular show apart from some others. Through interacting with the exhibition, I was mostly fascinated by its cohesion and structure focused on one evolving topic. The artist not only creates an animation to address his ideas but also the accompanying sculptures and a score that parallels the tale told in the film. This sense of passion and commitment is inspiring and noteworthy. Mosley creates artwork that not only intrigues to viewer on a visual level, but also that exudes a strong sense of intellectual investigation and purpose.