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Gina Tibbott, the George Washington University MFA grad who staged six consecutive games of on-campus SpaghettiO-pong with classmate Kenny George last May, is again fucking with your childhood nostalgia. Tibbott’s new solo show, the Tibbott Family Pet Burial Recovery, opens tonight at Project 4 Gallery.
In sharp contrast to last spring’s conspicuous consumption, this exhibition finds Tibbott getting down to the bone: Tibbott dug up all the pets in her family’s backyard, made casts of their bones, and put them on display.
According to Project 4: “Porcelain casts of tiny skeletons that remain of these once loyal companions lay in recreated tombs as scientific photographic studies of the remnants … A trained archaeological researcher herself, Tibbott presents these very personal fragments in a cold, detached, manner as if this were the study of a civilization long passed.”
While Tibbott’s “Spaghetti Bros” stunt placed classic kiddie food in the seedy context of frat culture, “Recovery” accomplishes a more serious time-warp with its archaeological excavation of childhood heartbreaks past. Leaving the frats behind, “Recovery” instead accesses a different element of Tibbott’s college experience: The exhibit puts both her archaeology BA and ceramics MFA to work.
The exhibit runs through August 9 at Project 4, 903 U St. NW.