My favorite review, ever:
"At sixteen, shaking in my boots, I showed Roula Partheniou and Dave Dyment my Google Street View books. To be clear, I had unknowingly made a worse copy of Jon Rafman’s photo series. I tried to smile as they observed. What are you supposed to do with your face when someone is analyzing your art?
Dave started: “They’re amusing, but you need a more specific focus.” He flipped to a page where I had laid out, side by side, a photo of a beautifully scruffy dog and a man I thought resembled the animal. “This is what you need more of,” he said. “Maybe you could focus on people who look like dogs.”
Roula elbowed him. She must have sensed my disappointment. Shut the fuck up, her body language was saying. At that moment, I saw her as a protective mother figure. Flattering myself that I could be some kind of demented version of their child.
In their first collaborative show at MKG127 (everyone always thinks I’m talking about Machine Gun Kelly), the two long-time partners take on the role of Montessori heads. Roula’s stripping down and reassembling of everyday objects is paired with Dave’s obsession with research and visual connections. The Swiss-hippie teachers are ready to re-educate the postmodern child on the simple pleasures of life.
Dave has started seeing faces in rocks and trees, as the cavemen once did. Roula frames the natural wonders with her wood-cutting mastery. I wonder if this is their child, the one I wanted to be so badly back in 2017.”
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