Kerry Skarbakka, The Struggle to Right Oneself: A Survey

"Things fall apart; the center cannot hold."

William Butler Yeats, The Second Coming

Banking collapse. Unemployment. Political uncertainty. Terrorist attacks. 2009 was a bad year at the end of a bad decade.

Who wouldn’t feel upended after ten years of the “aughts”? If the era has a theme, it’s the loss of control, the moment when you realize that the institutions and beliefs you counted on no longer work. Government couldn’t prevent 9/11 or even rescue hurricane victims trapped on rooftops. 

In his second solo exhibition with Irvine Contemporary, Kerry Skarbakka presents a survey of works that exemplify the grim spirit of the age.

"The Struggle to Right Oneself" is a series of photos that show the moment when everything slips away. From a perilous leap across a deep pit to being hurled through a window, they depict the microsecond when the solid world turns dangerous and uncertain. It’s when equilibrium is lost, the tipping point between control and chaos.

Skarbakka's photographs are staged ones. He sets up the scene and puts himself in it, taking a great deal of personal risk to create powerful and arresting images. Would you be willing to throw yourself through a window for a photo? Dive through fire? With himself in the picture, the artwork attempts to draw the viewer in, encouraging viewers to identify with the artist. He’s the everyman, a stuntman at times, representing all of us who have survived the decade.

The images represent the "peril we all live with," according to Skarbakka. The photos are part of a ten-year project that he is working on. He has two more years of dangerous stunts to survive before he intends to produce a book.

There is, however, an element of hope in the title of the exhibit: "The Struggle to Right Oneself." While they depict the moment when things are overturned, they also could be viewed as people trying to regain their balance, of the spirit all of us show in triumphing over disaster.

Kerry Skarbakka, The Struggle to Right Oneself: A Survey

December 19 to February 06

Irvine Contemporary

1412 14th St., NW

Washington, DC 20005

202-332-8767

Hours: Tuesday - Saturday, 11AM-6PM