LOS ANGELES—On Saturday, April 7, downtown Los Angeles’ Corey Helford Gallery (CHG) will premiere “Paper-Thin Hotel,” the new solo exhibition from Dosshaus, in Gallery 2. Dosshaus is the artistic collaboration of Zoey Taylor and David Connelly, whose work blends painting, sculpture, installation, photography, fashion, video, and performance to present fantasy worlds; using recycled cardboard from the alleyways of Los Angeles, paper, and acrylic paint as their primary mediums.
For their debut solo show at the gallery, the duo will transform Gallery 2 into a flophouse hotel featuring a lobby and several rooms depicting different people, lifestyles, themes, and vignettes of American culture.
Each room is separated by a thin, cardboard-covered wall. They are the literal representation of a flophouse hotel’s “paper-thin” walls from which the show takes its title. There is no illusion of privacy within this hotel. In that, the hotel can be seen as a metaphor for a modern, social media saturated world. Additionally, each room features a myriad of cardboard variations on artifacts that once served as the foundation of American culture – one can’t help but wonder if the real things are anything more than a paper-thin illusion.
Ostensibly a voyeuristic peek into the lives of the denizens of a low-rent residential hotel, it is also easy to see the installation as a treatise on the country in which this fictional hotel exists. Just past the lobby, viewers are able to wander through four hotel guest rooms. Each room is a completely different environment, and the sculptures collected within suggest a narrative about its inhabitant.
Dosshaus shares, “This is by no means a dour exhibition. Quite the opposite. The Paper-Thin Hotel is a glorious celebration of stuff. There is joy in every meticulous detail on view, and one is free to lose themselves, albeit momentarily, in a fantasy land devoid of the real-world trappings of politics, judgment, and consequence. We’re clearly enamored with the hotel dwellers we’ve created. This could be because the characters, as signified by the objects that surround them, represent different aspects within ourselves.” As such, Taylor and Connelly will appear at set times within the installation, performing the role of one or more of the characters. This is a departure for the duo, who previously appeared only as versions of themselves within their work. One gets the sense that the Dosshaus universe is ever expanding. And beyond this intersection, there’s an open road ahead.
The opening reception for “Paper-Thin Hotel” will be hosted Saturday, April 7 from 7-11pm in Gallery 2 at Corey Helford Gallery. The reception is open to the public and the exhibit will be on view through May 5.
