Luis Brennan will get you scribbling at 5th Wall Gallery

By Kristen Peterson

Wednesday, Jan. 4, 2012 | 4:14 p.m.

The joy of an experimental contemporary art gallery in a multi-use space is that you never know what kind of experience you’ll stumble onto while grabbing a cup of coffee on a weekday afternoon.

It’s why 5th Wall inside Emergency Arts couldn’t be in a better location. The current interactive exhibit, I & I, by artist Luis Brennan, has the small cube of a gallery divided in half by a wall of colored yarn neatly stretched taut with the words “Tell the other side how you feel” printed on a wall. Next to it are a notepad and pen. Sheets of scribbled-upon paper, pushed through from the other side, are strewn about the floor. Some sit halfway, pierced between the threads. Doors at either side of the gallery let you enter the other side, where there’s also paper and a pen.

From either side, you’ve entered an ongoing conversation and a striking composition of color. And, of course, you’re going to eavesdrop:

“I am angry.”

“I kind of want to light this string on fire. Fire will make me feel better ...”

“It’s Christmas Eve. I’m spending time with my family. Nothing more I could ask for right now.”

“I feel like giving you a high five.”

“The other side is out of f*cking paper!!!”

“Come to the other side. We have cookies and paper.”

Who is the “other side?” That’s for you to decide. In his artist statement, Brennan writes about a “membership in an invisible public,” an “absent other,” disorientation and the essential solidarity of the world, that “being” is always “being with.”

You’ll understand once you’re there, even if it’s not your destination—especially if it’s not your destination. There’s nothing like stumbling onto something that derails your ordinary thoughts on an otherwise predictable day.