Piet-Jan van Rossum with Paul Clipson (Photos by Louie Metzner)

Subtwine – Entwine’s speakeasy-like downstairs space that has hosted musical-artists-in-residence such as Toucan (as profiled in the New York Times), video art exhibitions curated by CoWorkers Projects— for a limited time is home to the West Village’s only ongoing experimental sound art event, KINEMATIC Thursdays. Presented by Yulia Topchiy of CoWorker Projects, Kinematic Thursdays is curated by Helen Homan Wu of Opalnest. This is such a unique series of events blending video art, experimental music and sound art that I asked Helen for a bit of the backstory.

Noveller

Heike Baranowsky 'Monfahrt' (courtesy of Galerie Barbara Weiss, Berlin)

Helen founded Opalnest to provide exposure for artists — artists who work with time-based media — that do not necessarily fit into the typical art gallery structure here in the U.S.  She explains that in European cities like Berlin, interdisciplinary contemporary art such as sound art is a robust, thriving genre regularly reviewed and written about by theorists in the same manner of the traditional fine art disciplines of painting or sculpture.

Gill Arno

Opalnest produces events both locally and internationally. Recent projects include satellite events for the New York Armory Show (including an event with Audio Visual Arts for Passing Stranger, an East Village “soundwalk” created Pejk Malinovski, narrated by Jim Jarmusch), a group exhibition of new media artists in Hong Kong, and an experimental sound art event in Mainland China. The daughter of a classical musician (father, flute) who spent her childhood on Manhattan’s Lower East Side, Helen steeps herself in the worlds of contemporary (and often interdisciplinary) video and sound artists, frequenting gallery openings, music and sound performances at venues like Roulette,  Issue Project Room and The Kitchen, and regularly schedules in-person studio visits.

Paul Clipson

Why create this sound exploration showcase at Entwine? Helen thrives on mixing diverse artists and audiences, creating events that cross boundaries, offering innovative, of-the-moment art that engages, startles, delights and surprises. Helen also mentioned that as Subtwine is a somewhat under-the-radar spot (and literally, under Entwine) at the nexus of the West Village/Meatpacking District, it feels organic to the overall Kinematic experience.

JUNE 14 – JULY 19, 2012
7:30pm Thursdays
Subtwine @Entwine, 765 Washington Street

Check here for a complete schedule and links to the participating artists.

Installation View

At the heart of the interdisciplinary, experimental approach to art making documented in “Black Mountain College and Its Legacy” at the Loretta Howard Gallery, is a human ethology that emphasizes cooperation and interdependence.  What happened at Black Mountain College is as nostalgic as it is antithetical to western society’s preoccupation with the importance of the individual over the group, most recently highlighted with the passing of Apple’s visionary icon earlier this month.

Ray Johnson

In an early 20^th century America, the maverick North Carolina-based institution fostered a breadth of inter-media (multimedia) projects achieved through assemblage, a style of working Steve Jobs would never have subscribed to.  Therein is this show’s value and significance.  It is a celebration of creativity achieved through mutual dependence versus the aggression and competitiveness our society often celebrates in our (now post-Jobsian) world.

Picture a college campus populated by some of the greatest artists and thinkers of the 20^th century, including Buckminster Fuller, Ben Shahn, Cy Twombly, Robert Rauschenberg, Harry Callahan, Dorothea Rockburne, Elaine and Willem de Kooning, Merce Cunningham, and John Cage, many of whom have their work on display here.  Yet, Black Mountain College was not an arts school, although there are over 100 works by 35 artists in the show.  It was a liberal arts college (it closed in 1957) that experimented with art.

. . it really became kind of recognized [at BMC] that art could be anything, and could be made out of anything, and that it didn’t necessarily cross boundaries — they thought – between theatre, the visual arts, dance, music, etc., that you could mix all this up and make a multi-media – or . . . environmental art.

Kenneth Noland, Student 1946-48, 1950 Summer Session

Robert S. Mattison, who co-curated the show with Ms. Howard and wrote the catalog, offers several insights about the visiting artists’ program which differentiated the college.   “BM stands out for freedom of inquiry.  Artists were invited without institutional restrictions, and the interactions with the students were determined almost wholly by the artists themselves…[it’s] heritage is defined by the linkages between individuals.”

“Black Mountain College and Its Legacy” challenges viewers to consider what resulted when the talents of so many innovative artists from such a variety of disciplines were harnessed in a remote valley setting just outside of Asheville between 1933-1947.  The show gets an aural jump-start with John Cage’s debut into electronic music, Williams Mix, 1952-53, which is analogous to techno-rock today. The sound piece is followed by a photograph of David Tudor’s performance of Cages’ “4’33”. To learn that Cage credits Robert Rauschenberg’s White Paintings as the inspiration for the piece is to begin to understand how the dots connect within the context of the expansive two-storey show.  Around the corner is Merce Cunningham’s film Antic Meet, four short filmed “studies” of the roots of modern dance, tedious because our awareness of the dance that would follow it is now mature.

Dates on many of the works place the artist’s career on a continuum between those influenced by the “legacy period” and those made more recently.  Willem de Kooning’s Standing Figure, c. 1948-50, for example is shown next to Two Women, 1963.  Kenneth Noland’s 1949 V. V. is next to the 1963 Soft Touch.   Ray Johnson’s hypnotic collages include Untitled (Dear Suzi) 1958 next to 3B (Back of Cupid Head with Snake) 1992 with Untitled (Merce Cunningham) 1982-88 wedged in between.  In the later work, Johnson sums up why Black Mountain matters; embedded in the piece is written:  after 40 years of avant-garde choreography, the grand old man of experimental dance is still treasured by the young and finally winning mainstream recognition.

Buckminster Fuller

Dorothea Rockburne, inspirational in making the show happen in Chelsea, contributed Gradient and Field, 1971. The piece further exemplifies an interdisciplinary approach and employs set theory, introduced to her by mathematician Max Dehn who spoke to her about “mathematics for artists”.

The story of Buckminster Fuller’s mobilization of the BC community to participate in building an unsuccessful prototype of what would later become the Geodesic Dome illustrates his  inspirational mantra, “everything is connected”. This is demonstrated in a photograph of students raising the failed Supine Dome above their heads, by Beaumont Newhall.  Newhall would later become curator of the International Museum of Photography at the George Eastman House from 1948-1958. A schematic print of Geodesic Dome accompanies the group shot, again, connecting the dots, or in this case, the venetian-blind material used to construct the Supine Dome.  Closest Packing of Spheres, 1980 proves to be a more concrete time capsule than the ephemera on the wall, but not less thought-provoking.

Where Jobs practiced control, Black Mountain eased it, erasing boundaries between who teaches and who is taught as well as the differences between dance, geometry, sound and the line—a legacy worth knowing about.

Go to Freight and Volume and see this show in its last week!

Check out the rad animation Andrew did: Talking to a Fish

Andrew Guenther has exhibited widely in New York, LA, and internationally, including: “Standing in Water up to the Shins, Your Foot Looks at a Minnow and Says,’Look What I Have Become!’” at David Castillo Gallery, Miami, and “The Slap of Bird Shit On Wet Pavement” at Mogadishni, Copenhagen. Guenther was born and raised in Wheaton, Illinois, studied undergrad in Wisconsin and Rome and received his MFA at Rutgers in 2002. He curated an artist’s storefront space, Arts Tropical, in Brooklyn for a few years. He currently lives and works in Brooklyn, NY, and is a proficient urban gardener who grows his own tobacco, berries, and grapes.

Entire feed HERE

When it comes to Art Galleries in New York, I have to admit, I have a crush on the Lower East Side. Perhaps that’s trite, but I don’t care.  I have been watching with cheerful expectations the last couple of years as one after another small, independently owned gallery moved into the neighborhood. The gritty, DIY aesthetic of the storefront gallery is something that appeals to me on a visceral level. There is something more personable here.  I no longer feel the need to rally against the white cube aesthetic of museums or larger Chelsea galleries when standing in the charmingly askew planes of a gallery that’s walls have begun to sag.  There are a number of incredibly well curated, exciting contemporary galleries in this neighborhood. Needless to say, I can’t resist excitement when a promising new one joins their ranks.

Toomer Labzda gallery- run by husband and wife team  Helen Toomer Labzda and Christopher Labzda- opened its doors on Forsyth st. on June 24^th. Their first exhibition is an impressive display by British artist Mia Taylor.  Taylor’s first US solo exhibition is indicative of the artist’s colorful, zany oeuvre. Her wall mounted sculptures feel like playful finger jabs, the relentless tickle of an artist reciting the vocabulary of modernism through a sing song warble. Her timber, paper and cloth construction are neon, cheerful and for all of their whimsy, have a rough and tumble edge that left me slightly uneasy. The artist’s drawings are equally as vibrant and seem to shoot neon mind waves throughout the room. I respect the sparse paring of objects in this exhibition, a strategy that tends to lend them the formal weight they deserve. I did leave the show wishing I could see more. The result was like the whispered first words of a promise, a hint of exciting possibility both from the artist and gallery.

Courtesy of the Artist

Ryan Wallace is a painter and mixed media artist who lives and works in Brooklyn.  His body of work spans a range of influences, re-purposing a variety of art historical and popular references into a fluid vocabulary of rough, playful abstraction. His paintings vary in size and medium but are united by their alternating notions of fragmentation and unity and by a moody, often diffuse tone. His compositions reflect the payload of modernism viewed through the dust covered lens of a gritty, sun bleached kaleidoscope. His interest in the way information is presented, transmitted and stored results in a sensibility that is equal parts science, mysticism and high fives. I had a chance to stop by the artists Greenpoint studio recently to talk with the artist.

HH: You went to school at RISD, your background is in illustration, have you always been a painter?

RW: I don’t have a deft touch. I have to work things into submission to gather my bearings. I tend to make a mess and then clean it up. There is room for this approach in painting. Painting has always felt most natural to me. I’ve been making sculptures and other three dimensional experiments lately but those even feel rooted in my approach to two-dimensional picture making. I stumble into these efforts as a result of not being able to articulate a tone or idea on a flat surface.

HH: You frequently work in the space between painting, collage and printmaking. Perhaps you can speak to this. How do different mediums fit into your practice?

RW: They all inform one and other. I’m always interested in finding new ways to use materials that are endemic to their specific properties. Certain types of work I can only resolve on paper, others on canvas or panel. The limitations of each lead to breakthroughs in others. In this sense the formal quality of materials is a very important part of my practice. I think I have a consistent sensibility and the outcomes are guided by the materials themselves. It keeps making things interesting. I couldn’t sit down and make ten paintings one at a time one after the other. While an oil painting is drying I may work on a mold for a sculpture or a piece on paper. It keeps the experience of being in the studio feeling fresh. I am free to work on what feels appropriate at the time. I think it also keeps a thread between the variety of media within a body of work.

Courtesy of the Artist

HH: You are constantly working on several bodies of work, each embodies a separate formal element of your practice. Your make collages, what you termed “proper oil paintings,” spare minimal “tablet” paintings, as well as evocative unique prints, how do you imagine each as part of the whole?

RW: I see it all as one body of work composed in parts revealed at various times.  I have mentioned before Brian Eno’s idea of a song as a selection lifted from a larger soundscape. I see my work functioning like this as well. That each piece is a selection of a larger atmosphere or timeline. Sometimes these parts are ripped from this environment and sometimes taken as an elegant slice or section. Certain paintings seem to be disintegrating or building themselves in front of you. Lately I have been looking at the Timeline pieces functioning like an Atlas and the other works as specificities within this larger collection. Atlas is also the name of particle detector at CERN that I have done research on. I like when monikers fall into place like that and this is often how I come to title works. In regards to my last show. I started the (((Ω.))) paintings in the summer of 2009. I developed them to a certain point then I photographed them and put them away for a year or so. Then, I bitmapped and tweaked the pictures in Photoshop and made lithography plates from those images. These plates became the basis for the works in the large square grid in the show. As I began those works on paper, I switched from newsprint to a finer, whiter drawing paper and Mylar to catch the run off from the plates in the printmaking process. Those pieces of paper and Mylar make up the cut pieces in Mist (Timeline) 3 and other works with the collage elements. Then I looked at everything and went back to finish the paintings that I had first started. From there I felt that the gestures in the work could be played with in a different way and maintain a similar tone and the Tablet paintings are the result of that exploration. So there is a physical and material relationship between the work as well as a conceptual link.

Courtesy of the Artist

HH: Your collage pieces especially are defined by their use of form, there are clearly references to painterly tradition and modernism, but you draw equally from science. Where do you gather these influences?

RW: I read a lot of books and magazines, I attend seminars from time to time. Youtube and the web are valuable resources for research.

Right now I’m watching this:

http://www.wimp.com/bighistory/

I focus less on specificity and more on the gesture of these types of ideas. I am especially interested in the human condition, how we operate, perceive and interpret the world around us.   I see a parallel between our own personal fears and desires and the way that the public views developments and trends in the sciences. The fuzziness of reality and imagination.

I recently read an article in Discover about how teams at the University of Rochester and University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign  were having success with a series of quantum experiments showing that measurements performed in the future can influence the present. They call this Reverse Causality. Destiny is another more familiar word. They were studying this by observing particles under a laser run through several mirrored reflections, over a prolonged period of time, much longer than is typical in these types of experiments. I saw this as a very similar approach to making a painting. You sit and observe and wait for things to happen in front of your stare and you go back, revisit marks and areas and make necessary adjustments. My work isn’t about the science of Reverse Causality. I will tap into an idea like this in terms of its approach to observation and time and philosophical nature and use that as a starting point for my work. Science has given me a lot of starting points in recent years.

What I find fascinating or worth further research isn’t important to the work beyond getting me to begin it.  I am just trying to make pictures that contribute to the dialogue of painting. I see each piece as “a painting” not a painting about this or that.

HH: When did you start using collage, how do you approach this process?

RW: I have always made collages. As far as how I apply it now it began by wanting edges harder than I could make with paint. I was cutting out images and shapes from paper to get this type of edge and collaging those pieces into narrative, architectural paintings. As the work began to abstract more and more I still had these piles of cut paper and mylar laying around. Some pieces were of recognizable things and some were just scraps with color and texture that I had built up.  I shared a studio at the time with the artist Joseph Hart. He uses cut paper and collage as a primary method in his work. He moves the pieces around on the page and makes malleable compositions that he plays with until they are glued down. I found this technique to be a fast way to find surprising results that I employed in my own work. Having this detritus around I was able to experiment with familiar material during this period of transition.

HH: Your paintings reference both the celestial and the grid, is there a logical intersection for the magical and the rational?

RW: When I present a piece like (((Ω.))) Cycle,

http://www.ryanmwallace.com/Guerrero8.html

those are the precise kinds of concerns that I am hoping to incite within the viewer. I try and keep any opinion out of the work but use materials and visual cues to guide its reception.

Courtesy of the Artist

HH: Your works seem to champion a level of instability; there is a sense of both momentum and collapse. There is something dystopic, though your paintings are composed of light there is darkness, where do you fit in this contradiction?

RW: The notion of serenity subverted is a common theme. This brings us back to the blur and fuzziness of perception that I am interested in. With those paintings, I am aware that they reference Ross Bleckner’s light paintings at the same time as aboriginal dot paintings. The big bang and the big crunch. This white light is our symbol of creation and of death.  I like the ambiguity of all of this.  I think it breathes mystery into works that at first glance feel so direct. I find that it helps the viewer come to the work on their own terms.

Courtesy of the Artist

HH: The introduction to your recent catalogue quotes Pierre Chardin. Can you elaborate on the significance of “the omega”?

RW: The Omega Point is a term that he coined in his book The Phenomenon of Man. Chardin’s theoretical “Omega Point” describes evolution as a process that leads to increasing complexity, culminating in the unification of consciousness. While I find these types of theories beautiful I am wary of lofty singular ideas and predictions: the end of the world, a raison d’etre for evolution, one supernatural being, universe, politic, etc. The nature of this singular event is subverted by painting more than one.Here is total consciousness….wait, maybe it’s this one.

I used this idea as the starting point for works in a recent solo show at Guerrero Gallery in San Francisco. A critic wrote this about this installation:

http://www.ryanmwallace.com/Guerrero1.html

“This visual reverie is interrupted in the installation by the sheer  repetition of nearly identical canvases in tight proximity to each other. The frequency seemingly degrades the potency of each piece, shifting the interpretation of the sequence of paintings to the act of repetition itself. Robbed of this perceptual intimacy, the series as a whole shifts to a veneer of pop decadence, as if the canvases were nightclub promotions.”

He really understood what I am doing, though I’m not sure that he realized it. I found this very complimentary, I think it was meant to be critical.

HH: We’ve talked about your influences, from sci-fi to physics. Who are some of the contemporary artists you’re looking at today? Is there anyone who you feel pushes you?

RW: I find the artists closest to me to be the biggest inspiration.

Last week the best shows that I saw were by Mark Grotjahn, Picasso, Sol Lewitt and Katy Moran.

Tara Donovan’s show of pin paintings at Pace was exceptional as was the recent Rudolf Stingel show at Gagosian.

HH: Your starting a gallery in East Hampton, tell us a little bit about it.

RW: It is called Halsey Mckay Gallery and we are now open. The name is a combination of our grand mothers maiden names. Mckay is also my middle name. I opened it with my good friend Hilary Schaffner. She is an artist and in recent years has focused more on curatorial endeavors. She has a strong background in photography so between the two of us we have a pretty thorough appreciation of a broad spectrum of work. We are working with several artists but for the main exhibition area of the gallery we are focusing on one and two person shows. You can see images of our first show by Patrick Brennan here:

http://www.halseymckay.com/patrick-brennan-there-is-an-ocean/patrick-brennan%E2%80%93there-is-an-ocean

We are really excited to bring artists that we are close with and whose work we believe in to the Hamptons where there is a great understanding, history and support for visual art. It all happened very quickly and I feel very fortunate to have such amazing artists to give opportunities to and a great space to show the work in. The artists that we have in our schedule are truly emerging. They are all showing in New York and abroad and have exciting careers but may not have appeared in a biennial or major museum show yet.  We are hoping to be able to exhibit these artists work in a setting that doesn’t have all of the pressure of a big New York show but still is exposed to serious patrons, artists and those who appreciate great work. The community in East Hampton can provide this.

HH: What are your plans? Upcoming shows?

RW: It’s a busy summer that I am really excited about.

I will be in Grasping for Relics at Zieher Smith organized by Patrick Brennan.

Summer Whites at Rachel Uffner curated by Eddie Martinez and Sam Moyer.

I’m releasing a book that I made with Oakland publisher Land and Sea at my friend Annabelle’s shop on June 17th. This is a joint release along with beautiful books made by Dave Kennedy Cutler and Ruby Sky Stiler.

I will be in a show at Blackburn 20/20 as part of a fellowship that I did at Robert Blackburn Printmaking Workshop.

I am curating a show at Eric Firestone Gallery in East Hampton called Domestic Goods. May 28-June 28. This is a large group show of some of my favorite people and artists.

At Halsey Mckay we are putting on five exhibitions from the end of May through September:

Patrick Breannan May 20-June 7

Joseph Hart & Ruby Sky Stiler June 10-July 4

Chris Duncan July 8-July 31

A Group show curated by Rachel Uffner August 5- September 6

Glen Baldridge & Bryan Graf September 6-October 3

Courtesy of Morgan Lehman

To be honest, I haven’t found myself spending very much time in Chelsea as of late. For one reason or another I find myself chasing the promise of art in the Lower East Side along Orchard Street, or running through the galleries scattered across Williamsburg.  This said, I was happily surprised when I walked into Andrew Schoultz’s opening last week at Morgan Lehman gallery. The gallery features primarily young, emerging artists and the exhibition felt all the more vibrant considering its 23^rd street environs.

Courtesy of Morgan Lehman

The exhibit, Unrest, is a gargantuan attempt at wrestling with the American psyche. The artist mines symbolism from our national mythology, combining a sense of history with the dissonant bustle of contemporary life. Hulking brick monuments crumble and atomize, obscured by a swarm of personal and historical imagery. Trappings of mysticism and state authority recall the visual vocabulary of our founding fathers. The gallery’s press release explains that “The wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, The Japanese Earthquakes and the BP oil spill all fuel this new body of work.” While none of this is perhaps readily apparent, what we do see is a certain level of zeitgeist, an expression of the collective unease. In “Black Flag Storm” an arc like boat, with sales made from collaged squares of international currency is assaulted by a hail of black flags (traditionally a symbol of the anarchist.) As in many of his other pictures, it is as if all the  trappings  of the establishment have themselves arisen from slumber to aimlessly mill about in an anxious moshpit of  sacred regalia.

Courtesy of Morgan Lehman

Perhaps what I enjoyed the most was the level of whimsy. There is a sense of playful abandon and optimism that evokes art’s ability not only to remind and empower but also to distract and refresh.  In an age of Fox News, where politics is dominated by punditry, Schoultz’s brand of esoteric caricature is all the more refreshing. We are shown the thin line between the rational and the irrational between the official and the personal. What we are left with is a sense of unease and the possibility of subtle disobedience.

E3-HS9, 2011

Tree Drawings, Nightwalks, Insect Flight Paths, Restorative Device, For the Baron, Postal Works, and his latest Recorded Delivery.  Those are the work titles of UK based artist Tim Knowles. You can pick up on the artist’s sensibility simply from those titles – simplified to bare bones – no more, no less. When I first experienced one of Knowles’ Nightwalks photographs at Bitforms Gallery, I was indeed speechless. One could easily muse at Knowles’ Nightwalks images and be inspired to write. Understanding the process behind this creation though, shows us a slightly different story. The artist uses all the natural elements as his materials, which forms a spontaneous and performative act. No, this has nothing to do with performance art, more like behavioral studies. Looking at Knowles’ body of work all together leaves me at this comfortable space that is somewhat ambiguous yet extremely familiar. Who would have the guts (or time) to wire-tap the inside of a package with audio/visual recording devices and send it off on a 902 mile journey?  I wouldn’t. It must’ve also required a period of trial-and-error before the package is ready to set off. The result, “an artwork which captures the topsy-turvy world of a parcel in the post.”  Recorded Delivery, created with permission from the Royal Mail, is currently on view at the Bitforms Gallery, NYC, until the 27th of May.

E3 3TT 18:21:41[E3-HS9

HW: I am fascinated by your Post Box project. It seems to be a progression from your previous Postal Works.  What is the inspiration that led to this entire series of work?

TK: I had been making drawings produced automatically by systems beyond my control, such as a series made by a pen suspended below a buoyant helium balloon which traced out the wind’s movements on paper. I was exploring different possibilities and began to think about ways in which the act out delivering an artwork might produce the work.  The postal drawing works and the vehicle drawings were conceived at the same time – the postal works particularly as a low cost and simple way of making a work for exhibitions further afield.  For my exhibition Music of Chance I drove down to Milan, Italy producing a drawing onto a roll of slowly moving paper in the back of the car. As I traveled the drawing recorded forces at work within the car as it drove along motorways, up and down mountain passes and around city streets.  Departing with a blank roll of paper a drawing is created over the duration of the journey, which maps the roads and traffic conditions with very distinct sections.

TK: Similarly, with the postal drawings, I seal a blank piece of paper into the parcel and neither myself nor the recipient (gallery / collector) knows how the piece will work out until it is opened when it arrives.  And with Post Box E3-HS9 when I downloaded the 20,000 images taken over its 902 mile journey there is a real sense of excitement to see what has been captured.I had been working with long exposure photography and experimenting with time lapse so Spy Box the first camera parcel was a logical progression.

HW: Do you plan to further develop it?

TK: Yes, and the crate work presented in the Bitforms 6th floor project space was a first step in that direction, but I don’t really want to give further developments away at this stage.

Recorded Delivery (Installation view), 2011

HW: A large part of your work seems to be based on the natural phenomenon of chance vs. control. Can you tell us a bit about working in this method?

TK: Akin to scientific experimentation, a situation is engineered and the work carried out – rules, limitations and boundaries may be set and to some extent affect the outcome of the work but with the exception of ending the experiment, I relinquish control. The work frequently utilizes tailor made mechanisms in its production, be they custom made parcels, weathervane helmets.

Roman Signer describes his practice as using actions (such as an explosion, a fall, etc.)  to sculpt  - cause and effect – he presents the results of actions. Similarly, my work presents the results of processes and experiments.  The situations I construct though carefully and genuinely adherent to the process are not scientifically rigourous and a multitude of external factors come into play.

My more recent works such as the Windwalks made in London are less predictable and allow for greater number of possibilities and outcomes, and a greater potential of the unknown for me the participant.  I set off guided solely by the wind venturing into unknown territory, the constantly changing wind is channelled, diverted and redirected or blocked and reversed by buildings, eddies shift, passing vehicles create air currents, etc.  The drawing produced as a part of the final work accurately maps my random meandering, which collides with the city’s structure and obstacles.

The Post Box work takes an image every 12 seconds. These images capture random moments, at times the parcel moves through the postal system, at others sitting still observing the system working around it. With works such as the tree drawings the outcomes are relatively predictable – clear connections, characteristics and patterns often existing between trees of the same species, though all the drawings differ.

Though notions around determinism, free will, chance, randomness and prediction are a significant aspect of the work, it is certainly not solely about these concepts.   The work does not assert a particular fixed position with regard to the concept of determinism,  certainly not a hard determinism incompatible with free will.  I’m currently developing works which explore the idea of the butterfly effect, and the way in which events are connected in an infinite global network of causes and effects, the world in constant flux.

Crate work #1, London - New York City, 2011

HW: Your Tree Drawings are delightful and hint at a playfulness that most of us as adults have forgotten. What influenced you to make this project?

TK: I think a sense of playfulness is very important and often goes hand in hand with a desire to explore, sadly can be looked down upon by some as connected to childishness. According to Stephen Nachmanovitch, play is the root and foundation of creativity in the arts and sciences also as in daily life. Improvisation, composition, writing, painting, theater, invention, all creative acts are forms of play, the starting place of creativity in the human growth cycle, and one of the great primal life functions. Play may also serve as a pretext, allowing people to explore reactions of others by engaging in playful interaction. Flirting is an example of such behavior.

Tree Drawing - Hawthorn on Easel #1, 2005

HW: What is your system of research, from concept to realizing an idea? Do you put aside project ideas and revisit them in the future?

TK: Ideas are refined and resolved over time until they are realised or not, as the case may be – in many cases there is a level of logistics, organisation, the production of mechanisms, before the project can be executed and/or realised. There are a number of different but connected strands running through my work be, it the mail art works, the Nightwalk photographs or the Windwalk series. There are connections between the strands – long exposure photography was used in my Insect flight paths, Full moon reflection photographs and in the night walks – which connects with the Windwalks and Restorative Device #1 and Suit which spills a trail of seeds as I walk through a barren landscape, creating a living trail. The notion of drawing a line, a pathway recorded is central to all of the work.

HW: What was the experience like producing the Nightwalk photographs?

TK: The Nightwalks are performed over a new moon so there is no moonlight. A large format camera is set up on a tripod looking out into the landscape, the shutter is opened and then I walk away from the camera into the dark night landscape carrying a number of very powerful flood light torches.  As I move through the darkness the lights illuminate the landscape revealing my path. Whilst one can see the ground within the bubble of light immediately around you – as I walk, my position in the landscape and orientation to the camera are steadily confused and I just try to follow the ridge I’m walking, a path or a compass bearing.

TK: For different works I have walked for between 45 minutes and an hour & a half, subject to the landscape and the camera’s view point.  When I reach the point that I want the walk to be finished or I’ve moved out of the camera’s view I turn off the lights and turn to the direction where I think the camera is, carefully retracing my steps in the dark until I can see a light signalling that the camera shutter has been closed by an assistant, I acknowledge with a signal back and then make my way back to the camera with a head torch. Each of the long exposure photographs takes 2 to 3 hours by the time I’ve returned to the camera and 2 or 3 walks are made each night.

Nightwalk - Valley of the Rocks #1

HW: Have you thought about other ways of capturing the light other than using photography, ie. shooting with video?

TK: I have looked at other ways of capturing light including video but photography also has the quality of being able to compress time into a single image often revealing things that weren’t apparent to the eye – the pattern of the full moon’s reflection on undulating water or an hours walk captured in one of the Nightwalk photographs.

HW: Your work addresses some environmental concerns (eg. the Seed Suit and Wind Walks), yet romanticized in its own right.  How do you feel about the environment that you’re living in now?

TK: Much of my work, particularly the Tree Drawings, Windwalks explore and investigate the natural world, drawing attention to it but without taking a political position. The new works made for the Horticultural Society introduce the notion of a restorative environmental gesture – I find the idea of restorative environmental design fascinating and something that will be required more and more if we are to preserve the world around us.

The world is changing fast, and in many ways that are deeply worrying – I feel that we need to pause, consider what kind of world we want to live in and change a lot of the values we currently hold.

HW: What are you reading these days?

TK: A little time back I read Our Ancestors – a collection of 3 great stories by Italo Calvino one being Baron in the trees from where the title for the Horticultural Society Exhibition originates.I’ve just started reading The Gift by Lewis Hyde.

HW: Any upcoming projects to share?

TK: I will be presenting a collaboration with Brazilian Artist Carlos Eduardo Costa (Cadu) at Galeria Vermelho, Sao Paulo in June – the project explores weather both on a local and global scale. There are others upcoming projects but they are staying under wraps at the moment!

(Images courtesy Bitforms Gallery)

Courtesy of Sean Kelly Gallery

At the risk of generalizing, I’ll admit that I am often suspicious of art that presents itself as “conceptual.” What frightens me is the disconnect that often exists between concept and experience. Discussing this idea with an acquaintance at a party several years ago I was asked mockingly “do you seek to be moved?” I do, and firmly believe that successful conceptual art can elicit not only a cerebral, but also a visceral physical response in the viewer.  With this in mind, I had few expectations when I wandered into Sean Kelly Gallery in Chelsea last Wednesday. What I found was a mixed, but ultimately satisfying exhibition of works by Joseph Kosuth.

Courtesy of Sean Kelly Gallery

The first two installations present relatively standard fair in terms of Kosuth’s oeuvre.  There is a recreation of the artist’s first gallery show in 1968. The ten photo works on aluminum present his famous black and white dictionary definitions of  “nothing”.  While the pieces might be slightly obsolete on their own, the pleasant scent of nostalgia hangs in the air to good effect.  A neon installation based on James Joyce’s Ulysses from 1998 was on display in the next room. This installation was perhaps less impressive considering the glut of uninspired neon at this years Armory show. Having said that, it would be foolish to discount Kosuth’s early and frequent mastery of this medium.

Courtesy of Sean Kelly Gallery

Courtesy of Sean Kelly Gallery

The main gallery features an ambitious, never before exhibited work. The cavernous space has been transformed into a black walled void. A single band of neon spells out excerpts from Samuel Beckett’s Waiting for Godot and from his lesser-known Texts for Nothing.  Hovering just below the ceiling, the author’s words are eerily disembodied from their surroundings.  The muted light only emphasizes the thick sense of blackness oozing through the room. The only sound is the hum of electricity. The artist is undeniably present, contemplating the void from dimly lit margins. The result is both disquieting and meditative. I circled the walls of the gallery four times before realizing it. As I stumbled through Kosuth’s amalgam of borrowed language I felt my stomach tighten. What I encountered was the punch in the stomach I have been waiting for. Kosuth’s strength plays expertly in the space between meaning and its presentation, and Texts (Waiting for-) for Nothing’ Samuel Beckett, in play, is no exception.

As we approach the horizon of the 2011 Unsound Music Festival NY, I can feel the anticipation building up. If you are a fan of electronic music and sonic arts, like I am, you probably know that Europe (particularly Germany) is the place to be. Beginning April 1st, New York folks will be in for a treat.  It was only until a few weeks ago that the 2011 program has been announced, but it was well worth the wait.  Last year’s line-up was amazing, but this year’s will not disappoint. The Festival officially opens on April 6th, with a preliminary week of screenings and lectures opening on April 1st under Unsound Festival NY Labs.

View full program and artists here.