So Messed Up I Want You Here

Often, one writes a love poem in order to hide, code, obfuscate, or provide contour and nuance to the most commonplace, yet profound sentiment in the world. This is precisely the problem of love: that it is boring, but also the greatest feeling one can experience. Therefore one feels a necessity to dress it up in fancy or bizarre clothes in order to express uniqueness or depth. Molly Roth and Sam Scranton's collaborative installation takes declarations of love - some artless, some soaked in sentimentalism - and shrouds them in language itself. Breaking down spoken language into its constituent phones, Scranton causes the statements to drift between sense and abstract vocal articulations, between clear statements of ordinary feeling and spit, air and resonance. Roth disguises the written word inside of itself, adorning it with obsessive decoration or covering it up with common household materials.





satin ribbon, masking tape
From the exhibition Good Night, Children. We're In The Arms Of The Great Lover, a collaborative exhibition with Sam Scranton, at Art Of This in Minneapolis, Minnesota.