Westside, Los Angeles
Max Hooper Schneider
Born in a Mausoleum
Del Vaz ProjectsDel Vaz Projects, in inaugurating its new location, sets the stage for yet another one of Max Hooper Schneider’s experiments in the rerouting of morbidity’s presumed meaning into something wonderful, something that galvanizes a spirit of hope. Seven years ago, his mother’s pig-entrail-strewn laptop was succeeded as the dank playground for hundreds of freshwater crabs. Today, we are presented with a pearlescent mauve casket repurposed as a chicken and duck egg incubator, in what was once Shirley Temple’s bedroom. An allée of fossilized ceramic battle vests of varying glazes flank the casket like heraldic relics incanting a rite or elder spirits sanctifying a birth, the entire room existing as a mausoleum of natura naturans, a shrine to life. Ducklings and chicks will begin to hatch and will populate the agricultural gardens of Del Vaz Projects circa May 8th-13th.