The Cat House Settlement by Morgan Ritter is a display of carpeted cat houses in a Seattle garage. Ritter has been developing this work for about three years.
Her cat houses are constructed from items one would typically find in a garage such as neglected furniture, ladders, pallets, and some obsolete domestic structures. The Cat House Settlement is a project of dissociation and fantasy, responding to her experiences of crises and disappointment in the human species.
The garage is favored over the gallery for its associations of intimate workshop space, safe area for scrappy prototyping and invention, and site for garage sales. All works were fabricated in her garage studio, hence the incorporation of some of her artwork as stand-ins for cats.
Supplementing this work is a list-poem that attempts to catalogue all the possible functions of art (a majority of which are critical, if not negative). The artist’s long-time fixation on cat houses is born from...
• an inclination to reject the art market proper.
• striving to genuinely make work for non-humans, with an interest in its inherent contradictions. Paradoxical is the human understanding of non-human desires, always limited by the human vocabulary of domestic material, structures, comfort… i.e. in the omnipresent use of beige carpet.
• a curiosity about structures outside of our own comprehension.
• an affinity for cats and interspecies interactions.
*All cat furniture is functional and available for purchase. Contact Morgan to discuss acquisition, shipping methods, and custom cat furniture commissions.
*For the duration of The Cat House Settlement, Veronica’s gallery space will house items previously found in the garage. This is not an exhibition.
*The production of the “Art as…” list poem and the cat furniture does not end when the exhibition comes to a close. Ritter will continue working on both projects for the remaining duration of her life.
THE CAT HOUSE SETTLEMENT, Installation Image #1
THE CAT HOUSE SETTLEMENT, Installation Image #2
Corner with STOOL WITH WHEELS (ALL THE WORLD'S PAIN, YET THERE ARE MOVEMENTS), CAT PALLET: LG, and HANG ME ON A DOORKNOB AND I'M HAPPY$1500, $1000, $500 OBO
STOOL WITH WHEELS (ALL THE WORLD'S PAIN, YET THERE ARE MOVEMENTS) $1500 OBO
Detail, STOOL WITH WHEELS (ALL THE WORLD'S PAIN, YET THERE ARE MOVEMENTS) $1500 OBO
CAT PALLET: LG $1000 OBO
HANG ME ON A DOORKNOB AND I'M HAPPY $500 OBO
Corner with STOOL WITH WHEELS (ALL THE WORLD'S PAIN, YET THERE ARE MOVEMENTS), HANG ME ON A DOORKNOB AND I'M HAPPY, and LAPTOP DESK: SECURITY SELF PORTRAIT $1500, $500, $800 OBO
LAPTOP DESK: SECURITY SELF PORTRAIT $800 OBO
Detail, LAPTOP DESK: SECURITY SELF PORTRAIT $800 OBO
WORKSHOP EASEL WITH ENERGY DRAWING, ATTEMPT #1 TO CATALOGUE THE FUNCTIONS OF ART, and INTERSPECIES WORK TABLE $500, $10, $400 OBO
ATTEMPT #1 TO CATALOGUE THE FUNCTIONS OF ART, Zine, 14p $10 each
STUDIO COMPONENT NFS
WORKSHOP EASEL WITH ENERGY DRAWING $500 OBO
Detail, WORKSHOP EASEL WITH ENERGY DRAWING $500 OBO
INTERSPECIES WORK TABLE $400 OBO
LAPTOP DESK: COMFORT WITH IN A NUTSHELL DRAWING and THE MIDDLER (NY) VERTICAL LOFT (I Have a Hat) $900, $1000 OBO
LAPTOP DESK: COMFORT WITH IN A NUTSHELL DRAWING $900 OBO
Detail #1, THE MIDDLER (NY) VERTICAL LOFT (I Have a Hat) $1000 OBO
Detail #2, THE MIDDLER (NY) VERTICAL LOFT (I Have a Hat) $1000 OBO
Detail #3, THE MIDDLER (NY) VERTICAL LOFT (I Have a Hat) $1000 OBO
CUSTOM ELEVATOR $800 OBO
CUSTOM ELEVATOR with SPHERE $800 OBO
CORN PRESENT, 2 x 2” WAND: ROUGH, ARCHIVE OF ANGELS, DOLL BOX: HIDEY SPOT and CAT PALLET: SM $400, $300, $1000, $1000, $400 OBO
CORN PRESENT and 2 x 2” WAND: ROUGH $400, $300 OBO
ARCHIVE OF ANGELS and CAT PALLET: SM $1000, $400 OBO
CAT PALLET: SM $400 OBO
DOLL BOX: HIDEY SPOT $1000 OBO