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Mantras for Plants | Crowds, Chants, Religion and Plants with Rob Carter

Guest Blogger — Thu, 03 Nov 2011 16:00:28 +0000

GUEST POST BY HEIDI NORTON

Rob Carter, Culte, 2010, Video Still

I live in Humboldt Park and as of lately I am way into observing, assessing, and mentally noting changes in the trees. The seasons have me thinking about cycles– nostalgia is creeping in. As the lush green turns to yellow, and the yellow to red, my mind wanders back to Rob Carter’s stop motion video and installation of the Nest. Rob’s solo exhibition Culte was recently on view at EBERSMOORE (relocating to 350 N Ogden, Suite 100, January 6, 2012) earlier this fall. I was mesmerized by Rob’s show so much, I saw it twice (see why below). He was gracious enough to give me some of his time to talk plants, architecture, and crowds among other things.

Heidi Norton: Architecture seems to be an important focus within your practice. Within “Culte,” you create an architectural hybrid of the tennis stadium in Queens, Flushing Meadows, the site of the US open and the facade of a Gothic cathedral. Talk about the significance of the actual space – the interior architectural and exterior architecture – that these pieces reference. Why this particular stadium? Does the ground around the stadium play a role? Does it have a historical reference? Why Gothic architecture?

Rob Carter: Frequently my work begins with an architectural juxtaposition and this video has several. The stadium seating is indeed composed of a series of shots I took from each quadrant of the Arthur Ashe Stadium in Flushing, Queens. However there is little significance to that fact as I have made the playing surface, and therefore the game, very ambiguous: it is an elongated octagon of perfectly mown grass or perhaps Astroturf. The idea is that this is a fairly universal stadium for a universal unspecified sport – the video’s audio track uses the sounds of chanting fans from all over the world representing the theatre and community of sport. Likewise, the outside architecture is made up of Gothic architecture from a variety of European cathedrals, though most are from England and France. All the elements are photographic prints that have been resized to fit on one architectural model structure – they form a building that is fractured (sometimes the outside is made of interior images) and complete – almost believable. To some extent it represents the mega-churches that have formed a significant part of the development of Christianity in North America. These buildings and their ‘organizations’ naturally draw interesting comparisons with the entertainment, fervor, and ritual of sports stadium events. I have been interested in these overlapping cultural themes for several years – how the need for sport and religion divide and unite our cities, both architecturally and as a communal experience.

I chose to unify the exterior of my stadium with one style of architecture. Gothic architecture is not specifically religious architecture, but it has become most closely associated with Christianity through the Gothic cathedral masterpieces of the 12th–15th century. I have a longstanding relationship with these types of buildings – family summer holidays always included multiple visits to cathedrals and churches all over the UK and Northern France, so I have a strong personal connection with it and despite all those church visits I also still love it. Plants and the natural world have many associations with Gothic architecture and carving which makes a coherent juxtaposition with the plants that surround this particular building in my video. Simplistically the representation of nature in Gothic architecture, as it evolves over the centuries, shows the natural world in all its detail formed in solid stone, as well as an emerging order and purity that attempts to stand above the baseness of nature. Though the style evolves into the more rectilinear forms of the Perpendicular style, the association with nature, with plants, flowers, trees and foliage is always imbedded and celebrated within the buildings. The ground around the stadium did have other incarnations but I felt it worked best as a void or barren earth that isolated the building from the reality of urbanism (no roads or car parks), but that also tied the architecture to the ground. After all soil is essentially broken up particles of stone.

Rob Carter, Culte, 2010, Video Still

Heidi Norton: In graduate school, I made a piece about spectatorship and crowd power. I was very interested in the idea of absorption and the spectacle–the crowds and the event and/or the thing being consumed. I investigated groups of people of varying sizes within sporting events, church congregations, cheer leading competitions, etc. Please talk about the parallels between this type of absorption and the plants growth mediated through the camera and stop motion. Are these people chanting “mantras” or life to the plants?

Rob Carter: The plants are literally absorbing and consuming in order to survive and grow (the audio track also suggests this), so I am interested in this parallel with spectatorship. The subconscious need to belong – to engage, worship or be entertained en masse is a fascinating and important part of our societies. Your Graduate School piece sounds like an interesting project – I am most interested in ideas of the power of the crowd especially in connection with architecture and urban planning. To me the seedlings in “Culte” might refer more to the homogeneity that the crowd creates – how we lose our individual identity in the mass of a stadium crowd, and how despite their uniqueness the seedlings never have individual identity in our eyes. They are simply ‘programmed’ to absorb, nourish themselves and grow. In the circumstances of sport or religion the experience of singing, chanting or just shouting becomes an empowering experience but also one that, like plant growth, relies on order and timing. The voices are chanting many things in different languages, for varying sports and religions, but the auditory sensation is supposed to be something like a series of mantras – one that suggests physical and spiritual transformation – perhaps asking for the plants to burgeon.

Rob Carter, The Nest, installation view, EBERSMOORE, 2011

Heidi Norton: Why zucchini? Was it important that the plant be a producer of something edible?

Rob Carter: There are a variety of species used, but the soil was predominantly sown with zucchini and pumpkin seeds. When I embarked on this 8-month process I was unsure what I was going to get but the idea was that the vegetables should simply symbolize two architectural motifs – the column and the dome. In my wildest dreams I hoped that a pumpkin might emerge and put a dome on my stadium and probably crush it (the seedlings growing through “The Nest” are mostly pumpkins for this some association). Given the very restricted growing area it was not surprising that this did not happen and as it turns out the zucchinis totally overwhelmed the pumpkin seedlings – so I created a kind of vegetable survival of the fittest arena. It was, as you suggest, important to have something edible produced because the video is partly about sustenance and human needs – about our desire to connect with others and to be ‘nourished’ spiritually. It also attempts to make reference to the religion of food as I see it today – the evolvement of food ‘movements’ (Locavorism, Organic, Slow Food etc) and their influence on the way we live and the fanaticism that often goes along with them. For some, it has become a quasi-religious basis for the way they live their lives, affecting the choices for daily life in ever more complex and sometimes contradictory ways.

Rob Carter, Detail of Culte, 2010

Heidi Norton: “The Nest” was also on display at EbersMoore. My perception and understanding of the space was completely displaced when I saw the scale of the actual plants and model. I enjoyed this experience very much. Discuss the importance of exhibiting “the nest” and the significance of the camera’s point-of-view.

Rob Carter:In the course of making “Culte” I transformed my studio into some kind of bio-lab. It quickly became apparent that the apparatus of constructing the work was interesting and did something quite different from the video. This in itself has led me to a new work which will open in New York next year that will have all the apparatus of such a production in the gallery space including a larger scale seed-bed with plants growing and being photographed throughout the course of the exhibit. “The Nest” is something of a mini pre-curser to this. It is a remnant of the process of making the video – a relic of all those hours of growth; it also relocates the scale of the video for the viewer. What especially interested me in the remains of my studio garden was the way the plants had fused with this miniature piece of architecture – they now form a tangled web of plant matter that is both sinister and protective of the little paper sculpture. The new growth in “The Nest” represents both the beginning and end of the evolution described by the video. New pumpkin seedlings replace the evergreen playing surface and they are set-up to grow throughout the course of the exhibit. Here the seedlings grow in real time, but if you were to revisit the show the sculpture would have evolved and the architecture would be a little further obscured than on a previous visit. The sculpture asks the viewer to consider the camera’s point-of-view, and interpret how they have perceived the video. Having been seduced by the movement and sound, it should be something of a mental leap to then look at this pile of dead leaves, observe what is in it and consider the frustrating difference in the sense of time it suggests. The seedlings may feel even more static than they might otherwise – as ‘dead’ in time at the yellowed leaves that surround them.

Rob Carter, The Nest (regrowth), Installation view, EBERSMOORE, 2011

Heidi Norton: Does nostalgia play a role in these works? Is the idea of youth, memory, and lived experience of relevance? The longing for life? The POV of the camera, the stop motion, talk about all of the things in relation to the work.

Rob Carter: I don’t think I had considered it as nostalgic. That said, there are many personal ways it connects to me and my ‘lived experience’. Stop motion and time-lapse photography has the ability to make the mundane uncanny and often wondrous. Many experience this (first) as children so the adult experience of viewing work using such techniques can be mediated by such memories. My videos tend to use stop motion/time-lapse in a fairly ‘pure’ form – “Culte” uses the techniques of the nature program, but shows more than the highlights – we never see the flower open, but we see everything else.

Culte [installation version] from Rob Carter on Vimeo.

Heidi Norton: Was the nest a self-sustaining system? Why was it important to add an irrigation feature? How does the space and idea of the stadium change when the plant dies? For me, in the beginning the exterior appeared overgrown and at the end it was barren.

Rob Carter: I don’t think that the lushness is unattainable but it is fleeting. “The Nest” has a very basic irrigation system that required a simple collaboration between artist and gallery – they had to keep my sculpture alive for the course of the show. The surrounding dead plants reinforce how temporary and futile this is; the new seedlings are exposed as an effect and a symbol of potential without the possibility of reward. They themselves represent the true narrative – the story that none of us can escape from. However, I tend to look at this work in terms of cycles of life… cycles and overlappings of culture, community and tradition too.

****

Heidi Norton received her MFA from the School of the Art Institute of Chicago in 2002. She lives and works in Chicago. Norton has presented solo exhibitions in Chicago and San Francisco. Group exhibitions include How Do I Look at Monique Meloche Gallery, The World as Text at the Center for Book and Paper Arts, Snapshot at Contemporary Art Museum in Baltimore, and the Knitting Factory in New York. Norton was published in My Green City (Gestalten) in 2011 and her spring show Not to See the Sun, at EbersMoore was reviewed in Frieze, September 2011. Currently she is collaborating with writer Claudine Ise in a seasonal column for Bad At Sports called Mantras for Plants. Norton is represented by EBERSMOORE gallery in Chicago. She is faculty in the photography department at the School of the Art Institute of Chicago.

10 Picks for the Gallery Season Opener

stephanieburke — Fri, 09 Sep 2011 15:47:27 +0000

The Search & They Both Ride Horses

Work by Jason Lazarus and Cody Hudson, respectivily.

Andrew Rafacz Gallery is located at 835 W. Washington Blvd. Reception is from 4-7pm.

Culte

Work by Rob Carter.

EBERSMOORE is located at 213 North Morgan, #3C. Reception is from 6-9pm.

Homework

Work by the collaborative Public School.

The Family Room is located at 1821 W. Hubbard St. Suite, 202. Reception is from 6-10pm.

Overkill

Curated by Jefferson Godard, with work by Candice Breitz, Manon de Boer, EJ Hill, Diego Leclery, and Casilda Sanchez.

The Mission is located at 1431 W. Chicago Ave. Reception is from 6-9pm.

Untitled

Work by Ed Valentine. Tom Van Eynde in the project space.

Linda Warren is located at 1052 W. Fulton Market. Reception is from 6-9pm.

Dazzling and Bright, Alexandra Walrus, and Outlaws and Patriots

Work by Lorraine Peltz, Doug Smithenry, and Bill Harrison, respectively.

Packer Schopf is located at 942 W. Lake St. Reception is from 6-9pm.

Lovesick

Work by Nathan Vernau.

Robert Bills Contemporary is located at 222 N. Desplaines St. Reception is from 6-9pm.

Mystical Outlaw Rebel Baaddaasss Drawings and Mutinous

Work by Jason Robert Bell and Bret Slater, respectively.

Thomas Robertello Gallery is located at 27 N. Morgan St. Reception is from 6-8pm.

Ineluctable

Work by Barbara Kasten.

Tony Wight Gallery is located at 845 W. Washington Blvd. Reception is from 6-8pm.

Stan Shellabarger & Maria Petschnig

Western Exhibitions is located at 119 N Peoria St. Reception is from 5-8pm.

‘Fielding Practice’ Podcast Episode 6 on Art:21 Blog : MCA Shifts Gears, Ikea Hacking as Art, Ai Wei Wei

Claudine Isé — Tue, 12 Jul 2011 21:39:48 +0000

First off…if you haven’t listened to this week’s Bad at Sports interview with Hennessy Youngman, the creator of Art Thoughtz, make sure you do – it’s a gem, and just went live today! Next, on this month’s episode of Fielding Practice on Art21, we’re joined by two guest panelists: Nicholas O’Brien, our regular B@S columnist and an independent curator and writer on net art, and Abraham Ritchie, Chicago editor of Art Slant online magazine and The Chicago Art Blog. Along with our regular moderator Duncan Mackenzie, we discuss recent changes to the long-running 12 x 12 exhibition series at the Museum of Contemporary Art and review its current exhibition, Pandora’s Box: Joseph Cornell Unlocks the MCA Collection, then take a look at Jeff Carter’s current solo show, The Common Citizenship of Forms, at the Illinois Institute of Technology, in which the artist uses hacked Ikea furniture to recreate a number of Chicago buildings by Bauhaus architect Walter Gropius that were demolished in 2009. Finally, we discuss the situation faced by Chinese artist and activist Ai Wei Wei, who was recently released from a 3 month detention by the Chinese government. Plus, our picks for events and other happenings in Chicago for the month of July. Click on over to Art21 to listen in, and as always, thanks for joining us!

Top 5 Weekend Picks! (3/11-3/13)

stephanieburke — Thu, 10 Mar 2011 20:15:14 +0000

1. Uncle Freddy’s All-Stars at Co-Prosperity Sphere

Work by Em’rynn Artunian, Thomas Hagen, and Billy Pozzo.

Co-Prosperity Sphere is located at 3219 S. Morgan St. Reception is Friday from 6-9pm.

2. Uh-Oh It’s Magic at Threewalls

Work by Ben Russell.

Threewalls is located at 119 N. Peoria St., #2C. Reception is Friday from 6-9pm.

3. Dawoud Bey: Early Portraits at Stephen Daiter Gallery

Early work by Dawoud Bey.

Stephen Daiter Gallery is located at 311 W. Superior St., #408. Reception is Friday from 5-8pm.

4. Black at Peregrineprogram

Work by Candida Alvarez.

Peregrineprogram is located at 500 W. Cermak Rd., #727. Reception is Saturday from 1-4pm.

5. Waiting for Daylight at Iceberg Projects

Work by Dana Carter.

Iceberg Projects is located at 7714 N. Sheridan Rd. Reception is Saturday from 6-9pm.

Episode 270: Tammy Rae Carland

Christopher — Sun, 31 Oct 2010 22:01:38 +0000

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This week: The kick off of a series of programs recorded at Baer Ridgway Exhibitions in San Francisco during BAS’s mini residency as a guest of Chris Duncan during his “Eye Against I” exhibition. Brian and Duncan talk with Chris about the series, and then the main event Tammy Rae Carland! In addition to being a fascinating guest, Tammy is the only guest we’ve had who has a song written about them to utilize as their intro/outro clip (by the awesome band Bikini Kill no less).

Bio lifted from Tammy’s site:

Tammy Rae Carland was born in Portland Maine in 1965. She received her MFA from UC Irvine, her BA from The Evergreen State College in Olympia Washington and attended the Whitney Independent Study Program. She is an Associate Professor at the California College of the Arts where she also Chairs the Photography Program. She is represented by Silverman Gallery in San Francisco and primarily works with photography, experimental video and small run publications. Her work has been screened and exhibited in galleries and museums internationally including New York, Los Angeles, San Francisco, Berlin and Sydney. Her photographs have been published in numerous books including The Passionate Camera; Queer Bodies of Desire and Lesbian Art in America.

Her fanzine writing has been republished in A Girl’s Guide to Taking Over the World. She has also published photographs and received reviews of her work in numerous national media including: The New York Times, Big, The Los Angeles Times, Spin, Details, Out and The Village Voice. In the 1990’s Carland independently produced a series of influential fanzines, including I (heart) Amy Carter. She has collaborated on the record art of some seminal underground music releases for the bands Bikini Kill, The Fakes and The Butchies. From 1997-2005 she co-ran Mr. Lady Records and Videos, an independent record label and video art distribution company that was dedicated to the production and distribution of queer and feminist culture. Tammy Rae Carland lives in Oakland California.

PS: A hearty “Fuck You” to Libsyn and their crappy software. This is the third time I’ve written this. Turn off or down the “time out” function on your site, jerks.

Episode 258: Nathan Carter

Christopher — Mon, 09 Aug 2010 03:31:47 +0000

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This week: We talk to Artist Nathan Carter who has a work in the current MCA Exhibition “Alexander Calder and Contemporary Art: Form, Balance, Joy”about his work, the youth perspective, and the secret trasmissions of numbers stations.

Here is a slightly outdated bio I lifted: Nathan Carter’s wall reliefs, sculptures, collages, and hanging objects are inspired by myriad aspects of contemporary society: modes of transportation, mass communication devices, sports insignias, and architecture for mass gatherings like stadiums and parade grounds. At once gestural and reductive, his works amplify strategies first explored by modernist artists in the early 20th century. Deeply rooted in a fascination with how visual abstract codes represent a means of abbreviated, if not universal, communication, Carter’s free-form compositions are simultaneously non-objective and referential.

Playful at first impression, Carter’s art contains allusions to mundane yet foreboding engagements, such as radio transmissions, encoded transcriptions, and other electronic communications that serve not only to link us to world networks, but also to place us under surveillance and deprive us of our privacy. Often our dependence on these tools and the despair that results from their failure to properly operate is a recurring leitmotif in his work.

Nathan Carter was born in Dallas, TX, in 1970 and currently lives and works in New York, NY. He received his MFA from Yale University, New Haven, CT, in 1999. He has had solo exhibitions at Galería Pilar Parra, Madrid (2007); Casey Kaplan Gallery, New York (2006, 2004, 2001); and Esther Schipper, Berlin (2006). He also participated in Art 33 Basel, Basel, Switzerland (2002). Selected group exhibitions include Neo Baroque, DA2 Centre of Contemporary Art of Salamanca, Spain (2005-06); Greater New York 2005, P.S. 1 Contemporary Art Center, Long Island City, NY; and GNS, Palais de Tokyo, Paris (2003).

Top 5 Weekend Picks!

stephanieburke — Thu, 06 May 2010 14:00:49 +0000

Hello again!

The madness of Artopolis is over my friends, and I’m glad for it, it was a long weekend. But this by no means indicates a lack of awesome art. This weekend is surprisingly busy, and here’s what I think shouldn’t be missed:

1. Immersioni/Immersions at Johalla Projects

A primarily, though not exclusively, video based exhibition jointly curated by Anna Cerniglia and Susanna Horvatovicova, and featuring the work of Elise Blue, Ben Russell, Rakele Tombini, and Chiara Tommasi.

Johalla Projects is located at 1561 N. Milwaukee Ave., 2nd fl. Opening Reception Friday, from 7-11pm.

2. Alphabetization at Noble & Superior Projects

An exploration of language curated by Ania Szremski, and featuring the work of Brandon Alvendia, Scott Carter, Eric Fleischauer, Brookhart Jonquil and Daniel Lavitt.

Noble & Superior Projects is located at 1418 W. Superior St. Opening Reception Friday, from 6-10pm.

3. The Home Front: What You Can Do! at Pritzker Military Library

WWII motivational propaganda posters. Have you started your war garden?

Pritzker Military Library is located at 610 N. Fairbanks Ct., 2nd fl. Show begins May 7th.

4. Flat 6 at Floor Length and Tux

Experiments in spicy with Jon Bollo, Luca Scala, Jonathan Ozik, Matty Colston, Catie Olson, and EC Brown.

Floor Length and Tux is located at 2332 W. Augusta, #3. Reception Saturday, beginning at 7pm, DJ at 11pm.

5. As you pass by and cast an eye as you are now so once was I at Western Exhibitions

Creepy sculpture and flat work by Rachel Niffenegger. John Parot’s show Hobbies also opens at Western Ex.

Western Exhibitions is located at 119 N Peoria St. 2A. Reception Saturday, from 5-8pm.

Devin King in Conversation with Stephen Lapthisophon

Guest Blogger — Tue, 09 Mar 2010 15:44:31 +0000

Bad at Sports would like to welcome Devin King as our latest guest blogger. “Devin King lives and works in Chicago. His first book of poetry, CLOPS, is out from the Green Lantern Press and the newest production of his serial opera, Dancing Young Men From High Windows, was part of the 2010 Rhino Theater Festival.”

Before Stephen Lapthisophon moved to Dallas in 2008, he worked and taught in Chicago for over 25 years. He’s represented in Dallas by The Conduit Gallery, has shown work recently in San Antonio at Unit B, will be doing an installation soon for The Henderson Art Project and currently teaches art and art history at The University of Texas at Arlington. I spoke with him over a few weeks last summer about his installation practice.

Through this, I’ve been interested in how his installations, paintings, and text/image essays effectively erased old conceptions of relationships between objects and their histories. As you’ll see, we spend a bunch of time trying to nail down exactly what he’s getting at. Lapthisophon says its an attempt to rethink our surroundings. I’m not sure we ever answered the question.

In Graham Harman’s recent book on the French sociologist of science Bruno Latour (Prince of Networks: Bruno Latour and Metaphysics), Harman describes Latour’s philosophy as “play[ing] out amidst microbes, tape recorders, windmills, apples, and any real or unreal actors that one might imagine.” Moreover, Harman continues, “Latour has no real interest in the pathos of depth: though his actors can always surprise us, these surprises always emerge at the surface of the world, not from some veiled underworld ruled by the shades of [philosophers, theologians, or poets.]” Against Harman’s description of Latour, Lapthisophon welcomes the irrational and poetic in our own responses to his work–Lapthosophon’s work with disjunctive elements reinforces Latour’s image of actors (be they objects, ideas, pictures, or personas) and their surprising emergence at the surface of a world of shifting relations.

The first thing I wanted to talk about was arrangement. You have an intuitive installation technique: you start with a small number of found objects/photocopies and build out into more materials–finding resonances through addition.

I think this is the result of an interest in limits and boundaries between art and everyday life experiences. I enjoy testing the tolerance level of a situation to see how much or how little can be added or changed while still living in the world of art. It is very much process oriented and, I hope, an open process–embracing flux and change: an open process reliant on intuition and chance operations. However, the method of working additively is neither sequential nor additive itself. I am guided by willful irrationality, chance, accident and mistake. I want to challenge accepted ideas concerning causality and intention.

Can you talk a bit about your idea of a “tolerance level of a situation” and how it manifests in your installations?

What comes to mind first is an unorthodox use of materials: although there is certainly a historical precedent (Arte Povera for example), I think my recent use of food in the art work–potatoes and apples in installations; salt, coffee, cocoa, saffron and bacon fat mixed with dry pigment in the drawings–challenge notions of permanence, effort, craft and process. Use of unorthodox materials asks the viewer to examine their notions of how art should be made as opposed to how it can be made. The commodity status of a work of art is questioned by works which threaten to disintegrate. Materials that are so obviously humble and everyday contrast with high tech impulses of much current art making. I am asking the audience to see how little can be used to create a work of art to wear away at a defense mechanism that resists what one sees all the time. For example, a drawing with my name written/ drawn /printed in saffron ink is a simple slight gesture but one with the poetic potential in its linguistic force the viewer’s internal enunciation of: “a signature in saffron.”

I know that sounds horribly banal but rethinking can be powerful. And any real appreciation of the everyday can also be unsettling. But I also want to imply a bit of a quotation method by asking someone to rethink through another work of art or cultural moment.

Speaking of quotation, can you talk a bit about your use of music in your work?

Music functions in a number of ways in my work. There are moments when I am hoping to stretch my ideas to the places where other artists/ musicians or composers have gone and given me a kind of permission to challenge myself. Anthony Braxton’s irrational logic, Elliot Carter’s elegant stubbornness, Chaka Khan’s willingness to balance ugliness and beauty, Kanye West’s audacity, all that pretty Sonic Youth noise, etc. Music also serves as a point of departure to mark a cultural moment as shared history and intersection–pop songs in particular. In Amanuensis (I Hear a Symphony) I used the Supremes song “I Hear a Symphony” to enact the play of presence and absence that was the subject of the installation. I broke up and distorted the song into its constituent parts focusing on the lyrics repeated “whenever you’re near…” In My Tradition, My Heritage My Voice Ornette Coleman’s “Free Jazz” played as part of the installation to tie the work of Dan Flavin and his quotation portraits of Russian Constructivist art with my own improvisatory impulses. The insertion of musical events acts as collage but a temporal pasting of an extra-contextual element.

Music seems so often used as backdrop-or, if not backdrop, as you said “extra-contextual”–how does one push beyond this? How do you see others pushing beyond this?

I think of the use of music as an element similar to a collage element–integral to the whole piece. It is overlaid or pieced into or pasted over. I hope it acts not as atmosphere but within the environment, which can be partially avoided by choosing something disjunctive–something that fights against its surroundings rather than “blends” in…this is different from welcoming noise and distinguishing music from sound and the use of sound pieces in installations. If disjunctive elements are orchestrated with care, one element is not necessarily made into the primary focus with everything else as background. Just because the individual elements are intended to be integrated with friction does not mean that a foreground/ background situation is established. One can still work against hierarchy…

That’s sort of what I mean–with everything “at the same level,” wouldn’t it all become either ambiance or full aggression?

Well, I think what I am having problems with/resisting is the idea of “things at the same level” because I think intrinsically some elements will carry a different weight or purpose. Already the combination of texts (and different types of texts) and other varieties of materials creates a difficult space of operation. For me, it is really a question of textures–actual and implied. It is not so much that sound and/or music provides a background as much it provides a different set of associations and textures. To a certain extent, installation as a form of activity already acts in a disjunctive manner displacing one world from another: where does the “real” world end and the art experience begin? In a recent installation (without sound) I combined cardboard, a crutch, long functional and useless highly colored electrical cords, clamp lights, white and colored bulbs, salt, apples, paper, signs, text, a walker, a crutch, a bright green ramp, hangers, tape and canned pineapples. All of these disparate materials were placed in a display window setting in a public urban space. I don’t think that it would be easily thought that these things presented themselves all at the same level. Their manifestation in a public setting also charged the appearance with discomfort by being so purposeless while containing so many purposeful things.

I think I operate somewhat pragmatically in some ways: I assume that salt, or and apple, or a piece of cardboard or a walker or an electrical cord will carry a different set of associations–different weights–and that once the process of interpretation or resistance to interpretation is initiated, then a certain kind of self-questioning might take place–a questioning of questioning. I think that when types of elements carry certain heterogeneities and varying textures that their status as stable carriers of meaning begins to wobble a bit–maybe a new meaning producing process (welcoming the irrational or poetic) takes place?

It seems to me that that phrase turns on “Maybe” in “Maybe a new meaning…takes place.” Your installations and objects are the first step to asking new questions, but what do those questions become? Maybe a way to ask the question differently: coming upon your signature signed in saffron, what question do you ask yourself when you see it outside of your gesture?

I appreciate your struggle and the work to get to the place where the question begins. It all seems to be a question of paths to other paths. Regarding the general question of questions I think there is an impulse to want to get a reader/ viewer to a place where the conclusion is simply–like the Gershwin-”It ain’t necessarily so…” More specifically regarding the saffron signature I have to start with the notion that a neutral viewer does not even know that the letters spell my name. And, so–the first step is a reading of a drawing–already a treacherous path as one first expects to “look at” a drawing and not read it. And then it designates not much. A name perhaps but not necessarily so….

So then the opposite would be true regarding your insertion of photos into your texts? One assumes the reader would not be as familiar with the photo as the easier-to-follow text?

I see what you are thinking but as usual) I try to have that relationship be a bit unstable–by that I mean combining images or photographs that might be more familiar with texts that seem to be unlikely combinations …or, texts that are difficult in some way. Or photos that are not easily recognized with more plain, uninflected texts or borrowed texts. I want–and this is difficult–to avoid the caption/image apparatus if possible. It is an engagement with the play of the supplement …

You seem hesitant not only to reduce your work to one single idea or object, but also hesitant to reduce your work to a relationship (or new relationship?) between ideas, except that, “these ideas and their relationships must be unstable.” If I may pull the old schoolboy logic out of the hat–wouldn’t this instability also apply to apply to the idea of “instability”? I don’t ask this as a “gotcha” but only because I sense something in your work that, while not transcendent in any way, at least attempts a critical response or a push past its own methods.

I understand and do not take it as a tricky question. But I don’t think there is a solution to that one– Yes, to a certain extent the unstable needs to be made either stable or not. And then is it unstable? I guess I am just trying to keep the relationship between the relationships and their intersecting ways of operating as varied and not predictable. Or at least I hope to be critical with respect to the ways that audiences might expect to see one element as privileged over another. There is no perfect audience or assumptions I can make with certainty but, for me, part of being an artist is reading the world into which my work arrives and to be aware of how current audience expectations and context is constructed. If I have some rudimentary reading of the situation then I can better see how to begin to introduce an instability. There is not perfect reading but it is all a process and the initiation of the dialogue is part of the process…

Top 5 Weekend Picks

stephanieburke — Thu, 18 Feb 2010 19:05:50 +0000

It’s that time again. This was another week full of many worthy options for viewing. I’ll be going to quite a bit more than just these five, but these looked particularly interesting:

1. You Can Lose Your Balance at 65 Grand

I’ve been a fan of 65Grand for quite a while. I am not terribly familiar with Scott Wolniak, but I took a trot over to his website, and it looked like interesting stuff. Corbett vs Dempsey or Noble and Superior are both close by, so why not go for a two- or three-for-one? See ya’ll at the top of the stairs.

65Grand is located at 1378 W. Grand Ave. Reception is Friday from 7-10pm.

2. Sarah Best: Daily Photos at Antena

There are two shows opening at Antena this Friday, and this is actually the smaller of the two. The premise involves cell phone pictures, a medium that I still find dubious, but which I need to see more of, so as to fully form my opinion. The one image available is beautiful, as you can see.

Antena is located at 1765 S. Laflin St. Reception is Friday from 6-10pm.

3. UnCommon Territories at Heaven Gallery

A group show of (primarily) SAIC sculpture kids, including: Marissa Benedict, Christopher Bradley, Scott Carter, Lauren Carter, Younghwan Choi, Colleen Coleman, Allison Fall, Elise Goldstein, Katya Grokhovsky, Samantha Hill, Holly Holmes, Scott Jarrett, Selena Jones, Maya Mackrandilal, Lisa Nonken, Luis Palacios, Ben Stagl, Stephanie Victa, Andrew Norm Wilson. Come spend an evening in Heaven.

Heaven Gallery is located at 1550 N Milwaukee Ave. Reception is Friday from 7-11pm.

4. Duncan R. Anderson at Kasia Kay Gallery

The best exhibition I ever saw at Kasia’s place was Anderson’s previous exhibition. I’m super excited to see that he’s back, and I can’t wait to see what new craziness he has on display. This dude’s work is friggin’ awesome.

Kasia Kay Gallery is located at 1044 W. Fulton Market. Reception is Friday from 6-8pm.

5. Room-a-Loom at Swimming Pool Project Space

Come see the spectacular culmination of the Room-A-Loom! People have ween donating their blue weaveable material for almost a month now. It is time now to experience what a giant loom and a giant room can make together! It’s gonna be fort-tastic!

Swimming Pool Project Space is located at 2858 W Montrose Ave.Reception is Saturday from 6-10pm.

Top 3 – Halloweenie

stephanieburke — Fri, 30 Oct 2009 18:23:53 +0000

This week you are getting a Top 3. Why? Well, do you want the truth or a lie? Too bad, this is what you get: these are the shows I think are absolutly worth going to this weekend. All three at new (in one way or another) spaces, and all three (we’ll ok, the first two, I don’t know anything about what is actually showing in the parking lot) feature awesome work. This is my chosen route, perhaps I’ll see you out there. If you see two people dressed like bats, I’m one of ‘em.

1) Means Without End at The Chicago Cultural Center

This is where I’m going tonight. Means Without End is an ongoing project by local photographer Shannon Benine. I’m pretty bad at describing work, so here’s a quote from the CPC website, “Means Without End, 2009 consists of hundreds of 10” x 10” unfolded photograms of peace cranes tiled together to form a large installation. The number of color analog photograms represents the number of American deaths in the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan since the beginning of Operation Iraqi Freedom on March 19, 2003.” I’ve seen these things in real life, they’re friggin’ awesome. The opening reception is tonight, Friday, from 7-9pm.

The Chicago Photography Center is located at 3301 N. Lincoln Ave.

2. Stone on Stone at ebersmoore

Formerly ebersb9, ebersmoore is featuring the work of Rob Carter for their first exhibition (their first exibition was actually the second half on and exhibition that opened at the old location, so I’m calling this their first). I went to the new space last week, it’s friggin’ beautiful, and I’m into this work. If you check out their website, be sure to wait for the video to load, then watch it. Opening reception is tonight, Friday, from 6-9pm.

ebersmoore is located at 213 N Morgan St., #3C

3. Helter Sculpture at Parking Space

Ok, so this is totally not Parking Space’s image. I made it because I went to their site and all they had was a show card with text, and this image instantly popped into my head. Regardless, this is another new space (not sure if it’s even going to have a second show, seeing as it’s operating in a abandoned parking structure, or so they say), and I have no friggin idea what the work is going to look like. Take a chance, I bet it will at least be weird. Helter Sculpture is the curatorial project of Andrew Greene, E.J. Hill, and Matthew Schaffer, and is hosting a reception Saturday from 4-7pm.

Parking Space is located at 1448 N Leavitt St.

Bad at Sports » Search Results » carter

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