2023-20 re-workings
re-workings
Between 2020 to 2023 as the world shuttered in response to the collective but asymetrical reality of a global pandemic, a more-than-usual reflective mood hovered in the studio. Having just relocated the studio, decades of work imposed itself throughout the new and still unfamiliar work space, earlier labors no longer buried away in years of storage. As the months of what felt at times like exile wore on, I set myself to the task of deliberate re-evaluation of earlier works, some of which now failed to persuade me. In part reaction to the shake-down of moving the contents of a studio of many decades, exposing shifts of thought and concern and evaluation, some of what made that journey to this new space was to be de-constructed and re-purposed—a process, at times ruthless, of dismantling, determining what parts might survive on their remaining useful, thus salvaging a new beginning and trashing of the rest—with no pandering to regret. And as the persistence of the pandemic held sway, I came to embrace the experience as a precious time to ask more of the work.
Note: It is not usual for such reveal on my part with regard to process and the maintenance of an archive over decades, but these past several years have unfolded as uniquely reflective. I see the archive as living, as opposed to historically set or given, and, as living, open for revision. Revisiting and amending works is such a revision. The dates given serve to clarify the process of the initial making and then more recent re-making of a particular work, as example: 1996/2020-3. The new work does not necessarily hold any resemblance to its initial version although there are always clues.
Works in sequence as follows:
breaking bad 2021-2
ultracal casting plaster, coper wire, lemon, orange, paper cup, dollar bills, quarter, pennies, light bulbs, neoprene gloves, egg crates, skids
8 x 59 x 26 inches
teufelkries 1993/2021
steel, neoprene gloves and boots, casting utracal, pigment saturated aquaresin
67 x 52 x 20 inches
elixer (the crooked path) 2022-3
pigment saturated aquaresin, graphite fiber, root
104 x 24 x 20 inches
coat (brother, can you) 1996/2021-2
wool, pigment, tree branch, pigment saturated aquaresin
70 x 74 x 24 inches
roadtrip 1993/2021
car trunk, pigment, casting utracal, rope, washing machine agitator
55 x 65 x 44 inches
ghostlimb 1993/2022-3
waxed canvas cloth, pigment saturated aquaresin, chopped graphite fiber, pigment
158 x 98 x 12 inches overall dimensions
body double (annotated atlas) 2022-3
2 1986 atlases of the world, pigment
each page altered, 122 map plates, 227 index pages
overall dimensions 57 x 20 x 5 inches
angel of history (decommissioned) 1993/2021-2
steel, cast iron, found objects
72 x 60 x 15 inches