CARDBOARD SCULPTURE DUO DOSSHAUS CREATES FULLY IMMERSIVE MULTI-ROOM INSTALLATION IN HOMAGE TO FLOPHOUSE HOTELS

On Saturday, April 7, downtown Los Angeles’ Corey Helford Gallery (CHG) will proudly premiere “Paper-Thin Hotel,” the new solo exhibition from Dosshaus, in Gallery 2. Dosshaus is the artistic collaboration of Zoey Taylor and David Connelly, whose work blends painting, sculpture, installation, photography, fashion, video, and performance to present fantasy worlds; using recycled cardboard from the alleyways of Los Angeles, paper, and acrylic paint as their primary mediums.

For their debut solo show at the gallery, the duo will transform Gallery 2 into a flophouse hotel featuring a lobby, reception desk, hotel bar and four rooms depicting different people, lifestyles, themes, and vignettes of American culture.

Each room is separated by a thin, cardboard-covered wall. They are the literal representation of a flophouse hotel’s “paper-thin” walls from which the show takes its title. There is no illusion of privacy within this hotel. In that, the hotel can be seen as a metaphor for a modern, social media saturated world. Additionally, each room features a myriad of cardboard variations on artifacts that once served as the foundation of American culture – one can’t help but wonder if the real things are anything more than a paper-thin illusion.

Ostensibly a voyeuristic peek into the lives of the denizens of a low-rent residential hotel, it is also easy to see the installation as a treatise on the country in which this fictional hotel exists. Just past the lobby, viewers are able to wander through four hotel guest rooms. Each room is a completely different environment, and the sculptures collected within suggest a narrative about its inhabitant.  

Dosshaus shares, “This is by no means a dour exhibition. Quite the opposite. The Paper-Thin Hotel is a glorious celebration of stuff. There is joy in every meticulous detail on view, and one is free to lose themselves, albeit momentarily, in a fantasy land devoid of the real-world trappings of politics, judgment, and consequence. We’re clearly enamored with the hotel dwellers we’ve created. This could be because the characters, as signified by the objects that surround them, represent different aspects within ourselves.” As such, Taylor and Connelly will appear at set times within the installation, performing the role of one or more of the characters. This is a departure for the duo, who previously appeared only as versions of themselves within their work. One gets the sense that the Dosshaus universe is ever expanding. And beyond this intersection, there’s an open road ahead.

The opening reception for “Paper-Thin Hotel” will be hosted Saturday, April 7 from 7-11pm in Gallery 2 at Corey Helford Gallery. The reception is open to the public and the exhibit will be on view through May 5.

About Dosshaus
Dosshaus is the creative collaboration of Zoey Taylor and David Connelly, artists whose work blends painting, sculpture, photography, fashion, video, and performance. From the outset, the pair has been interested in the intersection of high and low culture. Responding to a society saturated with social media-generated images in which reality itself seems more and more relative, Dosshaus explores the impact the emerging culture has on the way people view themselves and their place in society. They seek to create something out of that culture – a substitute reality that selectively accepts and rejects the conventions placed upon them individually as people and collectively as artists. They use recycled cardboard, paper, acrylic paint and glue as their primary mediums to fashion their own highly idealized universe. The works themselves invert the very idea of the readymade. These are highly manipulated, sculpted pieces that give the illusion of everyday objects from an alternate, animated dimension. This cardboard world is at once separate from and a comment on our modern culture.

Dosshaus has frequently paid homage to the music that has influenced their art. In advance of their show at CHG, the duo released their debut double 7” single (Dec. 15th), by the same name (Paper-Thin Hotel), in collaboration with Sympathy for the Record Industry. The limited edition single release examined the role of visual art in music and has the distinction of being the first officially released record to be made entirely of cardboard. Click here for more info.

Dosshaus is based in Los Angeles and their work has been featured by Juxtapoz, ELLE, Vice, Huffington Post, LA Weekly and the book The Art of Cardboard.

About Corey Helford Gallery
Corey Helford Gallery (CHG) was first established in 2006 by Jan Corey Helford and her husband, television producer and creator, Bruce Helford (Anger Management, The Drew Carey Show, George Lopez, The Oblongs) and has since evolved into one of the premier galleries of New Contemporary art. Its goals as an institution are the support and growth of young and emerging, to well-known and internationally established artists, the production and promotion of their artwork, and the general production of their exhibits, events and projects.  

CHG represents a diverse collection of international artists, primarily influenced by today’s pop culture and collectively encompassing style genres such as New Figurative Art, Pop Surrealism, Neo Pop, Graffiti and Street Art, and Post-Graffiti.

After nine years in Culver City, CHG relocated in December 2015 to a robust 12,000 sq. ft. building in Downtown Los Angeles, seven times larger than its original space, where it continues to host exhibitions within the heart of the city’s art community. The current space boasts three separate galleries, each of which house individual artist and group exhibitions, whereas the main gallery offers 4,500 sq. ft., providing total immersion for its attendees. New exhibitions are presented approximately every four weeks. For more info and an upcoming exhibition schedule, visit CoreyHelfordGallery.com and connect on Facebook, Twitter and Instagram.