Detail View: Visual Resources Teaching Collection: In the Name of the Place: Safety Sheets

aahi0003632

In the Name of the Place: Safety Sheets

full view

A collaborative project initiated by artist Mel Chin, the objects, props, and sets for "In the Name of the Place" were designed and produced by a group of artists consisting mainly of students and teachers from the University of Georgia, Athens, and the California Institute of the Arts in Valencia. Each week, the GALA committee would receive advance copies of the highly confidential " Melrose Place" script and propose props for the set of the show. These props acted as visual subplots, responding to the storyline of the show in witty and often overtly political ways. In this way, a container of Chinese food smuggled slogans from the Tiananmen Square protest onto primetime television. In another example, a pregnant Allison (played by Courtney Thorne-Smith) is shown working on a large quilt, but the image that unfolds is the chemical structure for RU486 - the controversial abortion pill. Inserting visual juxtapositions wherever possible, GALA's objects address subjects that are often too difficult to examine on a sitcom or nighttime soap. Modeling the project after the way a virus spreads, GALA's alterations often go unnoticed at first. But with subsequent airings, fans began to pick up on the unfolding visual drama. With the show now airing in syndication all over the world, GALA's objects spread their messages slowly and subversively. In 1996, GALA mounted an exhibition of the hundreds of objects produced for the show at the Museum of Contemporary Art in Los Angeles. (http://www.pbs.org/art21/artists/chin/card1.html)

1996

creation

2009-01-21

GALA Committee (American, founded 1995)

male and female

This complex collaborative endeavor was created by The GALA Committee: a group comprised primarily of students and faculty from the University of Georgia and CalArts. The group organized initially around the activity of developing site-specific art objects for the sets of the popular television series. Working first with Melrose's Set Decorator, GALA's collaborative structure quickly grew to include scholars, critics, other artists, and, most notably, the writers and producers of Melrose Place itself. With the ultimate goal of involving the television audience, the GALA Committee placed numerous props and set pieces in camera's view, which were then broadcast to an international audience of millions. Although the artworks were not intended to subvert or parody the series, the characters and stories often provided an opportunity to create pieces which addressed topics like gender, infectious diseases, violence, environmental devastation and global conflict. The exhibition sidestepped editorial posturing and aimed instead to infiltrate and transform the medium, reinventing television with interpretive, interactive possibilities. Simultaneously, the GALA Committee moved public art into the most broadly communicative context possible. (GALA Committee website: http://www.cftnm.ucsb.edu/mpart/)

visiting artist, Visiting Artist Program, 2004

LaPointe, Jon

Chin, Mel

Penley, Constance

20th century

Contemporary

contraceptives

Melrose Place (television program)

television programs

mass media

art

sexuality

textiles

props (object-genre)

sculpture (visual works)

textiles

sculptures and installations

hand silkscreened queen sized sheets

unknown

© GALA Committee

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