STALL
STALL, 2025, Site-specific installation with single-channel video (color/sound), custom toy theater, adorned horseshoe crab shell, straw hay, velvet curtain. Dimensions variable, 14:22 min, looped. Sound mix by Quentin Chiappetta.
July 2025 installation views at Turley Gallery, Hudson, NY.
From the Turley Gallery press release:
Sara Stern stages a site-specific mise en abyme in her latest exhibition, STALL. Responding to the interstitial space of Turley’s Light Well, Stern draws on dioramas, window displays, and works of art in which a viewer is made to peep in on a space. Stern’s STALL recasts this liminal space as a horse stall-cum-horseshoe crab theater.
A horseshoe crab watches the spawning of its species in a narrow horse stall. This is a show as old as the dinosaurs. The horseshoe crab, often referred to as a “living fossil,” is among the oldest species on Earth. By stalling, the horseshoe crab survived. Some people seem to think that survival is very important. To still is a synonym for stall. Some stalls contain urinals; others, hay. Some stalls sell vegetables; others, jewels. Some people use stall tactics; others stall inadvertently. A stall is a place where a horse goes when it’s “off-duty.” Stall vices might develop, out of boredom, out of necessity. “Stall: to play for time: DELAY.”
Special thanks to Jay Critchley, Adam Liam Rose, Cassie Packard, and the Fine Arts Work Center.