New Viewings #36
Curated by Daniel Muzyczuk
Words and Things. A Cycle
This is a series of online exhibitions in a model of a real space. The graphic files of artworks are inserted into the model to appear as if they are hanging from the walls. The digital recreation is (in most cases) looking as if it could really happen. The digital analogon however bears only resemblance to the real object. The latter is elsewhere. Actually multiple other spaces.
It is not about the illusion of actually making it into the gallery, speaking with the owner, asking casual questions like: „Is it made of wood?” The caption lists the materials but these are not related to what you see, but to another referent.
The resemblance is a matter of fidelity, but there is another thing going on in these shows. Can these objects be somehow conjured, activated? A vocal incantation places it in a narration. It is assigned with a position in time and a role within a larger performance. Mandelshtam posed a seemingly absurd question: „What is the difference between a book and a thing?”. Can a speech bubble appear and return voice to these objects?
Susan Howes’ poems are made of bits of writings of others. She uses concordances, which is a publication that collects all the words in the work of a given writer and offers an exact localisation in different books. A list that helps the researcher to find out the statistics of the usage of given words. Or, as one of the works lays out: „Concordances, I may remark, are / hunting down half-remembered / worthy service. They contribute n / e history of words, and so to the / iced such assistance from them” They are joined here with bits of books on plants, birds and minerals. The act of reading is organised by spacious piano composition by David Grubbs.
Tomasz Kowalski is the author of the painting depicting a man with large water bubbles. Most of them reflect the image of a coated figure in a landscape. One of them offers another reflection – a face similar to the visible protagonist. Mirroring surfaces are appearing in his works are inhabited by eyes, mirrors, but also letters and numbers.
Ivan Seal forms objects and places them in abstract space. They are composites of relics of memories. Their half-life is uncanny. How can they be summoned? The first step is by a title: „I believe the titles open up the paintings’ interpretative structure and meaning whilst balancing over nonsense and absurd.” These titles are generated not given. They collide with yet another activating layer, a series of psychometric test statements where „I” is replaced with „we”. Objects are turned into a multitude that coexist in a bleak background.
Finally Barbara Kinga Majewska stages an act of meaningful speechlessness. A majestic object is a speech banderole removed from the original. In the past it was used in painting to unravel the text of a singing person. This one is materialised (?!) and blank. The voice recording sings a wordless version of the everlasting classic of the earworm „Words don’t come easy”.
Daniel Muzyczuk
Susan Howe and
David Grubbs
Susan Howe, *1937 in Boston, USA
lives and works in Guilford, USA
David Grubbs, *1967 in Louisville, USA
lives and works in New York, USA
The gallery is filled with the first 7 pages of one of a new collage poem entitled „Concordance“. Susan Howe is cutting through books of poetry and fields guides to birds, flora and geology. Concordances are books composed of alphabetical lists of words used in the works of a particular author. It is making scanning easier. The recent edition of this work features also a longer prose poem entitled „Since“. It offers insight into the working process that is at the foundation of „Concordance“. It features fragments devoted to the main instrument – the scissors that enable a recomposition of the preexisting material. However many passages are also touching upon the act of reading of these fragmented passages: „In order to facilitate phonetic interpretation I will make up my mouth as if it’s a telegram”.
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Ivan Seal
Ivan Seal, *1973 in Stockport, Great Britain
lives and works in Berlin
The process started with a questionnaire. I was asked to reply to certain words with images. These, I believe, became the basis for the 5 paintings, or at least their titles. The images have a striking ability to present memory residues as objects. Their location is not given as they are set in a generic background that looks like a surface material used in object photography. Indeed the paintings are yet another reply to that everlasting question: „What should painting do once the photography was discovered?” By using background as a trope it gives the right answer to the wrong question. These clumps of matter have no use, yet they appeal. Their generated non-word titles perform a similar work. They look like they are legible yet the sight is simply left on their surface with some associations. They appear nonsensical. However both words and things are executed in a methodical manner that is inhuman even if it is created by a human being. This complex set of givens brings to non-life the word-thing combinations.
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Tomasz Kowalski
Tomasz Kowalski, *1984 in Szczebrzeszyn, Poland
lives and works in Antwerp, Belgium
Contrary to the other artists works in this cycle, the pieces of Tomasz Kowalski are made of stories. Even if they are simply leftovers and remains of a narrative, they are full of human beings that are active. They appear in the world that is made of optical devices. Eyes, mirrors, glasses, lens, binoculars, viewfinders, water drops, tears. The yellow work with the hole that opens a view to another scene is placing the viewer in a lookout post. There is an etymological connection between speculation and specula, a latin word that denotes this position. There is an obvious relation between seeing and knowing. However the connection to speculation might suggest something else. That the act of looking is also an ever changing operation that might include oneiric effects altering the sight.
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Barbara Kinga Majewska
Barbara Kinga Majewska, *1982 in Warsaw, Poland
lives and works in Warsaw, Poland
The previous parts of this cycle presented different possible configurations of the relations of things and words. There was only a word chapter. Kowalski speculated with only things, while Seal presented the full excess of both. The time is high to present the absence of both. The majestic object that Majewska hangs on the wall is a banderole – a method of introduction of singing and specifically lyrics in old art. The angelic choirs would be nothing without the suggestion of sound. This one is erased leaving the immaterial element of narration as a weighty metal twirl. The wordless voice performs the melody of a classic ear worm – „Words Don’t Come Easy”. How can words slip away from the grip when the sensation of lack thereof is expressed with words? The paradox of the song is that it is sung in a speechless form.
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