There’s a shutter at the door
and your cat’s your best friend
but everything is fine because you just know that
but did you leave the window upstairs open?
Was it supposed to rain tonight? I can’t remember
It’s just the wind
I live in an old house
No, there’s definitely, definitely something upstairs
Is my sister home early?
Or is it the ghost of my sister?
Is that chain?
A chainsaw?
What will I do with Dylan?
What will I do with my cat?
Are they here to take his other eye?
What about my eye?
Are they here to take my eye?
All I can think about is that scene where they cut up that guys eye in that movie
You know the one?
Actual shaking
Actual screaming
He’s coming for me
There’s no way out of this room
This is it

Fear, like any emotion, is much larger when the immediate threat is not present. When it arrives personified it is often familiar. When we try to escape it, only strangeness awaits. Karma is pleased to present Alex Da Corte’s C-A-T Spells Murder, for which the artist has employed video, sculpture, and painting to create an immersive environment.

Alex Da Corte (b. 1980, Camden, New Jersey) received a BFA from the University of the Arts, Philadelphia, and an MFA from the Yale University School of Art. His first survey exhibition, Free
Roses, was held at MASS MoCA, North Adams in 2016. He will mount a solo exhibition at Kölnischer Kunstverein in April. Other recent solo exhibitions include BAD LAND, Josh Lilley Gallery, London; Slow Graffiti, Secession Building, Vienna, Austria; A Man Full Of Trouble at Maccarone Gallery, New York; 50 Wigs at the Herning Museum of Contemporary Art, Herning, Denmark; A Season in He’ll at Art + Practice, Hammer Museum, Los Angeles (2016); Le Miroir Vivant at The Museum Boijmans van Beuningen, Rotterdam, Netherlands (2015). In 2012, Da Corte was awarded a Pew Fellowship in the Arts from the Pew Center for Arts & Heritage. He lives and works in Philadelphia.

An eponymous book of 24 spooky essays and short stories has been published on the occasion of the exhibition.