"Ten years ago, a Reddit user asked: "What's your last memory of being picked up by a parent?" The user StatOne recalled scrambling as a four-year-old to keep pace with his family as they briskly climbed an uneven hillside. He was falling behind and frightened of being forgotten in the dark when his father "unexpectedly" turned back. "He picked me up to his shoulder, never broke stride, so smoothly, so lovingly, like the hand of God reaching down," wrote StatOne."
"And then, without warning, that god sets you down, packs you a suitcase and sends you off into the night. The ensuing terror of adulthood begins, and rarely ends for most Americans. In 2023, the US Surgeon General declared an epidemic of loneliness driven by a "fundamental sense of disconnection from others or the world" and fueled by too much technology, too much work, and a dearth of familial, religious, or spiritual fulfillment."
A childhood memory of being gently lifted and then set down frames a meditation on parental withdrawal and the onset of adult solitude. The United States faces an epidemic of loneliness, declared by the Surgeon General in 2023, attributed to disconnection, pervasive technology, overwork, and diminished familial, religious, and spiritual life. A multisensory exhibition titled CRADLED debuts at Hauser & Wirth in downtown Los Angeles, performed by Frances McDormand and Suzanne Bocanegra and first staged at the Shaker Museum in 2024. The installation runs through January 4, 2026. The Shakers practiced self-sufficiency, celibacy, minimalism, and ecstatic worship such as dancing and singing.
Read at ARTnews.com
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