Daniel Oshima: I Wish Daniel Was My Bf

(Image taken from Kristen Peterson's article) Daniel Oshima in his installation currently on view at the 5th Wall Gallery


Daniel Oshima: I Wish Daniel Was My Bf
Installation currently on view at the 5th Wall Gallery, 520 E. Fremont St.
April 14th through May 4th 2012
With opening and closing performance/talks on April 14th and May 4th

     Currently on view at the 5th Wall Gallery, located within the Emergency Arts, is an installation by local artist Daniel Oshima. Oshima has taken his own bedroom and installed it within the 5th Wall Gallery space, to create an intimate viewing dynamic for his I Wish Daniel Was My Bf. Over the past almost two years, Oshima has been studying a fellow by the name of Daniel Jimenez while translating his occurences into artwork. When walking into the gallery the viewer is stepping into a room that looks as if it has been inhibited; there is carpet on the floor, a curtain over the second exit, a bed in the center, a television set, two little ice cream cone lamps and even a laundry basket behind the door with what is hopefully filled with clean clothes. The room is empty of the artist and his subject Daniel, so it gives the viewer the opportunity to voyeuristically peer into the worlds of both. There is an overwhelming sense of obsession, Daniel Jimenez's face is almost everywhere; portraits are hung on the wall, scattered on the bed and strewn under and beside the television. On the television set there is a constant loop of what Oshima refers to as the gaze, the serendipitous moment when you lock eyes with a person from across the room, furthering heightening the sense of yearning and obsession. When entering the gallery, the viewer is in the exact atmosphere that the fantastical world of Daniel Jimenez being Daniel Oshima's boyfriend; it does not take place in reality outside of this space, but for the time being it does within the context of the gallery.

    The repetitive quantity of the portraits mixed with the differences in line quality seem to heighten a sense of emotionality to them, they were done by the same hand but with a different emotional urgency each time. The portraits liken themselves to a teenage girl constantly writing down her first name with the last name of a boy that she adores, writing it down seems to expand the fantasy of the epic romance with the other person and further perpetuates the fatuation with the love. Walking in, there is a sense of familiarity with both the space (that being a bedroom, easily recognizable as such) and the subject matter ( an endless fixation on the possibility of love with another), but in contrast there is an uneasiness with the entire set up. It is strange to walk into a gallery- normally white walled, lit in a sterile fashion, and in the case of the 5th Wall Gallery there are two entrance/exits- that shatters all of your expectations of what the space should do. One of the doors is locked and blocked by a curtain, further transforming the space into a traditional bedroom and also controlling the viewer to navigate the space in a very distinct way. And there is an obviously lived in bedroom that seems to function as a studio as well, neither of which are normally highlighted in the showcasing of artwork, both of which are the behind the scenes factors that contribute to the making of art and are not considered art themselves. Furthermore, the artist has brought attention to his study practice as an important feature of his exhibit. Oshima's decisions in regards to his installation creates an uncanny, obessive aura that permeates the space and the artgoers that choose to enter into Daniel's fantastical reality.