Arabella and Anita

Curated by The Sphinx

July 22 and 23, 11-6 pm

Sigga Björg Sigurðardóttir and Mikael Lind
Jesse Bransford
Jaqueline Cedar
Elizabeth Insogna
Jennifer and Kevin McCoy
Mollie McKinley
Sarah Alice Moran
Adie Russell
David Shaw
Casey Jex Smith
Brian Wood

Two orbweaver spiders were launched into orbit in the summer of 1973, and their webs were observed. They were named Arabella and Anita, as all things in space must be named. The two spiders floated in a maze of peculiar lighting — as anticipated, their weaving was strange, as though hunger could ever be etched in violet light.

Without the sensation of earth’s gravity, each web was a whirligig, suspended not in dawn or day. Arabella and Anita’s stage is recurrent and sacerdotal, and at the Octagon House we return to assumed and ambiguous forms: the spiral, the wheel, the line, the web. Fifty years later, we salute these two arachnids — spinning their names, no matter gravity or microgravity. We go in circles, break silver threads, and trace the webs’ imperfect topos.

(Painting pictured here: Brian Wood. Mana, 2021, oil on canvas, 12 x 10 in.)

Upstate Art Weekend
Catskill Octagon House
21 Walnut St., Catskill, NY