Material Intelligence
A response to the exhibition by SOHEILA SOKHANVARI
Kettle’s Yard volunteer and artist
Volunteering as an installation assistant is like working backstage, in a play where the actors are the art works. As an installation assistant one is witness to the slow unfolding process involved in hanging a show where the quest for finding the ideal space for an art work means a continuous shifting and changing around an installation until a suitable place is established. On arrival each work of art is carefully unpacked and thoroughly checked for signs of damage and its condition is recorded. For this show, some works arrived with instructions of how to be assembled and installed, others, like the work of Tony Feher and Matt Calderwood were installed by the artists themselves.
As a team member I had a privileged position watching the show evolve as the installation was established. This evolution in the creation of an installation leaves a history, a thread of memory, adding a different (enhanced) meaning compared to that of the experience of the average viewer.
Kettle's Yard is a unique space not only architecturally but also in its distinctive history and place in the modern art world. Modern gallery space is constructed along laws as rigorous as those for building a medieval church, the outside world must not come in, the art is free to take its own life and be contemplated. Kettles' Yard is not strictly a white cube since large windows allow the outside world to pour in and the inside to seep out. May be it is this quirky nature of the space that makes each exhibition at Kettle's Yard a new way to experience works of art.
On entry to this exhibition the viewer is confronted with two large canvas "paintings" by Wade Guyton. These canvases were unpacked from large crates on arrival and like with all works of art handled with white gloves. Each canvas was carried by four people and carefully hung in their present position. These paintings reveal themselves as a product of mechanical reproduction, reflecting Guyton's practice of making artworks using commercial inkjet printers. Though the work looks effortlessly digital, on close examination there is evidence of the struggle between the printer and the material of the canvas. The inkjet printer pushed to its limits. It involves a multi layered procedure where chance and control couple in the creative process. The position of these canvases is ideal: their juxtaposition complements each other and the space within the works seems continuous with the space on either side.
Matt Calderwood installation was set up entirely by the artist himself. His search in the gallery store room for props resulted in a collection of objects ranging from overflowing bins to DIY gloves. These he laboriously assembled with occasional crashing sounds heralding the difficulty of its construction. His installation seems chaotic but also deliberate; its irregularity predetermined rather than random: each element necessary for the whole like with a scientific experiment or equation. The pluralistic nature of the work is suspended like a temporary final form by a virtue of a fragile concatenation of material and techniques. By bridging possible and impossible spaces, the resulting 'sculpture' evokes yet a different set of possibilities as an assemblage. The inherent tensions of the new assemblage bears witness to the trial and errors of installation, highlighting the fragility of the work. This Installation is not only about materiality of sculpture and what it is meant by "sculpture" but it's also about time. Time is nature's way of keeping everything from happening at once". This quote, attributed variously to Einstein, John Archibald Wheeler, and Woody Allen, says that time is what separates cause and effect. Perhaps in this installation Einstein meets Woody Allen; mathematical formula meets with ironic humor. Calderwood's installation stands as a living example in the presence of his video installations confirming his interest in the potentiality of disaster, where the unexpected incident is cloaked in absurdity.
Installed in the same space is the mobile by Martin Boyce, the broken hanging black chair communicates a simultaneous dark and moody structure of the gallows as well as the wit and playfulness of Calder's mobiles and is an appropriate companion for Calderwood's installation. However, in my opinion, the relatively small gallery space in this case does not afford enough room for the work to "breath". This mobile arrived with a set of instructions and photographs for its installation and the architecture of the gallery was one factor in determining its present position.
The overt, allegory-laden symbol of a mirror and insistently forlorn mise-en-scène of Ian Kiaer's installation, with potentially complex and intriguing readings, is manifested in a space that asserts the other contiguous artists concerns of what an art work is and does. The reflection in the mirror brings the other art installations as well as the viewer into the space and hence into the meaning of Kiaer's art.
In the front part of the gallery a distinctly female voice resonates through the works of Shirley Tse, Clair Barclay and Karla Black. Each of their work arrived enveloped in bubble wrap and packed in a crate with photographs and directions for their assembly. The sculptures by Shirley Tse were laid out and the strips were carefully weaved through and positioned at the right tension as instructed. There is an interesting relationship between the work of Tse and Barclay in that somehow they are reminiscent of a handicraft or part of a loom, like some kind of fragile production line, both have a relationship between function and dysfunction: inspired by ideals; a utopian project, they are mysterious objects which are not a thing that can function in the real world because then it would be reductive which would close down possibilities. The room is divided by the "thin sculpture" of Karla Black that allows the installation of Tony Feher to be seen through it from a certain position. All three artists in this room are exploiting familiar materials for a range of recognizable references trying to use the process of making "sculpture" to investigate how meaning comes through form. Although Black speaks in the language of painting, her work is about denying conventional language and requiring the viewer to find a new way of experiencing the boundary between sculpture and painting.
Tony Feher the amusing American artist who personally set up his work in the last room took three days to create his installation; it was not simply a matter of hanging bottles and dotting stickers. The beauty of the installation is in its natural grace that masks the artist's continuous experimentation with the materials and contemplation of light and space, which meant constant hanging and re-hanging. The installation changed from suspended blue plastic bags to plastic bottles, at one stage fluorescent pink sticker paper dotted around covering the walls and windows. The artist experimented with the material in the given space until the present organic line of the plastic bottles were created, somehow reminiscent of a Sea wave or rain drops that were immediately bottled and made ready for consumer society.
Art is about communication and utopia of communication is beyond taste, it is about how we confront and relate to each other and the objects around us, it has a social dimension. This exhibition is like a board-game without predetermined set of rules, where negotiating the material logic, possibilities of medium and issues of materiality, defines the rules of the game. Every artist in this show is a strategist who understands the game and knows what is at stake. The exhibition as a whole is playful and experimental with an undertone of melancholia and like with all successful experiments the element of chance has introduced something profound or beautiful. Each participating artist breaks from the medium specificity and questions what is meant by "painting", "sculpture", they question materiality and material property of everyday objects. Adorno argued that Culture industries cultivate false needs; that is, needs created and satisfied by capitalism. True needs, in contrast, are freedom, creativity, and genuine happiness. In our present gloomy economic climate and mass consumer society this exhibition forces us to re-evaluate our priorities and question everything around us.