What You See, Unseen

W

hat You See,

Unseen

Foreword

09

Essay

Materiality

11

Artists

Brian

Jungen

42

Choi

Jeong

Hwa

52

Ellen

Gallagher

62

Janine

Antoni

72

Jeffrey

Gibson

80

Kevin

Beasley

92

Interviews

103

Selected Exhibition Histories

118

Exhibition Checklist

124

9

Foreword

One of the most fundamental and practical aspects of art is the

importance of materials. The stuff that artists use when they make

a work of art influences both form and content. Every material

brings something special to the creative process and the finished

work. Materials influence how artists make their work and how

viewers perceive it.

Artistic media is diverse, ranging from painting, drawing, sculpture,

installation, moving image, photography, text, performance, digital

media, sound, and other dematerialized approaches. Artists use

contemporary visual technologies as a way of expressing ideas

about life and society today. These sit alongside and in dialogue

with contemporary artists who continue to work with older forms

of media like painting, drawing, etching, and printing. Artists today

are celebrated for their ideas and execution, we’re more likely to

pick their brains for their motives and meaning behind their work,

rather than their preferred brand of oil pastel, or which household

item is integral to their practice.

The question of how and why an artist uses materials has long been

a topic of consideration in art history. Today, many artists are looking

to this question and seeking to find a balance between what

they use to make work and the concepts behind them. Providing

agency to the materials themselves, artists are looking at materials

as a means of communication, whether they are expanding on

traditional media and narratives or utilizing everyday objects to

construct new forms. Exploring these concerns in their work, the

artists included in the exhibition are also considering why they

choose to work with certain matter in our current material culture

and social climate, and the role that these materials play within it.

Here are 6 artists to tell us about their favorite art materials, and

how they’ve propelled (and in some cases, even inspired) their

practices. While many have clear preferences, others asserted that

their work does not rely on a single item or mentioned objects that

you’d never find in an art supply store.

Materiality

10

11

Materiality

as

the Basis

for

Christina Murdoch Mills

the Aesthetic

Experience

in

Contemporary

Art

12

Materiality

Materiality: What It Is, What It Isn’t

Materiality, as an aesthetic concept, has evolved

out of formalism’s interest in the purely visual

aspects of art and structuralism’s interest in context

and communication. Following on the heels

of Post-Modern theoretical discourse which

acknowledges the relative nature of truth, materiality

provides a theoretical approach that is time

and situation-based. It is a means for understanding

the wide scope of contemporary art production

the function of contemporary art in the digital

age.

Materiality in works of art extends beyond the

simple fact of physical matter to broadly encompass

all relevant information related to the work’s

physical existence; the work’s production date and

provenance, its history and condition, the artist’s

personal history as it pertains to the origin of the

work and the work’s place in the canon of art history

are all relevant to the aesthetic experience.

The artwork’s physicality, those aspects that can

be sensed and verified by viewers, is a first consideration;

physicality impacts content and, subsequently,

meaning.

Another aspect of materiality as a theory is that

art locates viewers within their corporeal selves

by engaging the senses; such experiences are,

naturally, unique and individual to each viewer.

The aesthetic experience is evoked first through

art’s physical components, and then through an

intellectual engagement with materiality in the

broad sense, through time. Art provides a bridge

between ordinary experience and concepts that

transcend the seemingly static nature of the work

of art’s physicality.

Our relationship to works of art develops over

time. The means of production and the degree

to which process is evident in the final work also

13

impacts how viewers experience the work. Similarly,

the fact of whether an object is hand-made or

machine-made are significant aspects of materiality.

Perception is further affected by other signs

of process such as degrees of refinement and the

limitations inherent in materials.

The material aspects of works that have an essentially

immaterial nature, such as conceptual or

performance works, provide a foil for the more

obviously tangible artifacts such as sculpture or

painting. For example, video art requires electricity

and so cannot be viewed and does not, in fact exist

in many environments. This material fact impacts

fundamental aspects of video art’s content. Painting,

on the other hand, stems from an established

and more archaic tradition. The most successful

contemporary work exploits those limitations and

extends beyond known conceptual territory in

order to heighten aesthetic response in the viewer.

Artists throughout history have given expression to

ideas through art making as a means of expressing

the uniquely human desire to transform ordinary

materials into works of art or what is primarily

mutable and intangible; thoughts and feelings,

both bodily and emotional. In a contemporary

context, materiality is particularly relevant in that

contemporary art is understood to be a relic of the

artist’s process of investigation into the nature of

things, via objects’ materiality and artists’ work to

reframe meaning through aesthetic juxtapositions.

Just as art forms a nexus between imagination and

reality, the current notion about materiality in art

is that materiality is how art’s material qualities

are sensed, interpreted and understood. An aesthetic

experience ensues once art materials are

transformed, via an individual’s imagination, into

thoughts and feelings that are, first, expressed by

the artist and, then, received by the viewer.

Our ability to interact with the world in general, and

with art in particular, cannot be separated from the

conditions of our lives. Just as a body is the vehicle

for life, itself an energetic form, art objects embody

ideas and experiences. Individuals sense the world

and interpret what is sensed. We construct meanings

that shift and change through the course of

time. Each encounter with a work of art, from both

the artist’s and the viewer’s side, is influenced by

context, mood, circumstance, location, state of

mind and innumerable other internal and external

factors. The material manifestation of works of art,


Materiality

14

though, provides the most essential aspect of art’s

function and meaning.

Materiality is not to be confused with materialism.

Art is not merely a commodity. Though influenced

by the economics of exchange that fuels production

of art, materiality, “the quality or character of

being material or composed of matter,” is distinct.

On the other hand, materialism is “a tendency to

consider material possessions and physical comfort

as more important than spiritual values; the

doctrine that nothing exists except matter and its

movements and modifications” negates the complexity

of art.

The Russian painter Wassily Kandinsky (1866-

1944), widely acknowledged as one of the first

abstract painters, spoke of internality in art. He

held the belief that art, from the artist’s perspective,

must stem from an authentic internal source

in order to move human consciousness forward.

He asserted that true artists articulate subtle, even

paradoxical, emotions, rather than crude, more

obvious ones such as fear, joy and grief. In every

case, these things are communicated through the

materials present in the work, in the body of work,

through character and form, yet the work of art

is more than the sum of its parts. In 1914 Wassily

Kandinsky wrote,

Only just now awakening after years of materialism our soul is infected with the

despair born of unbelief, of lack of purpose and aim. The nightmare of materialism,

which turned life into an evil, senseless game, is not yet passed; it still darkens

the awakening soul. 1

A firm believer in the transformative power of

art, Kandinsky quoted the German composer and

critic Robert Schumann (1810-1856) who made

the famous statement, “To send light into the

darkness of men’s hearts—such is the duty of the

artist.” For such artists, according to art critic Suzy

Gablik, vision is not defined by the disembodied

eye, as we have been trained to believe. Vision is a

social practice that is rooted in the whole of being.

Also addressing the idea of a personal, internal

framework, art critic David Hickey writes:

Finally, it seems to me that, living as we do in the midst of so much ordered light

and noise, we must unavoidably internalize certain expectations about their

optimal patternings — and that these expectations must be perpetually satisfied,

frustrated, and subtly altered every day, all day long, in the midst of things, regardless

of what those patterns of light and noise might otherwise signify. 2

15

Hickey, like Gablik, grounds responses to art in

a personal, organic matrix that originates from

within the individual viewer. This is a distinctly contemporary

view, devoid of the larger moral implications

of most historical philosophical discourse.

Hickey addresses the origin of an aesthetic sense

through the senses of sight and hearing that

relates to patterning based on prior experience.

His idea implies an attraction to known systems

including natural, cultural and social forms that

provide individual points of reference for any given

viewer.

With materiality, the experience of the viewer is

essential, providing completion of art through

bodily perception, the senses; closing the loop, so

to speak. Yet no aesthetic theory can thoroughly

address the untenable nature of art’s shifting reality,

the least of which is its location in history. Perception

shifts continually as we relate to works

of art in different contexts. While works of art are

established within their materiality, the material

circumstances of the viewer will, by necessity,

continually change. From one position, once it

is complete, the art work’s materiality is defined

and fixed, from another position, that of the viewer

and the object’s location in the environment of the

physical world, materiality will continue to shift,

altering how the work is perceived, thus informing

content.


1. Wassily Kandinsky. Art Creativity

and the Sacred, ed. Diane Apostolos-Cappadona,

Art Creativity and

the Sacred. New York, New York.

Crossroad Publishing Company.

1984, 4.

2. David Hickey. Critical Reflections,

Art Forum 1995, http://findarticles.com/p/articles/mi_m0268/

is_n10_v33/ai_17239568/pg_1

(accessed Sept. 15, 2009).

16

Materiality

Imagination:

Unreal Objects and Allegory

Heidegger suggests that art has the potential to

activate the imagination and thrust it into imaginative

realms that transcend materiality:

A work, by being a work, makes space for that spaciousness. ‘To make space for’

means here especially to liberate the Open and to establish it in its structure. This

in-stalling occurs through the erecting mentioned earlier. The work as work sets

up a world. The work holds open the Open of the world. 3

a

This statement is paradoxical in that it implies a

“structureless structure”. In this sense, the open

of the world exists in an imaginative space; not a

true world, but an ephemeral arena of space, open

and free, extending out of, but not truly part of the

World.

17

Everything that might interpose itself between the thing and us in apprehending

and talking about it must first be set aside. Only then do we yield ourselves to the

undisguised presence of the thing. But we do not need first to call or arrange for

this situation in which we let things encounter us without mediation. The situation

always prevails. In what the sense of sight, hearing, and touch convey, in

the sensation of color, sound, roughness, hardness, things move us bodily, in the

literal meaning of the word. The thing is the aistheton, that which is perceptible by

sensations in the senses belonging to sensibility. 4

Richard Tuttle’s painted wall pieces illustrate this

whimsical and, arguably, open interpretation with

their crude construction, elementary school colors

and spatial awareness. Bound up in Tuttle’s complex

intellectual framework, his work investigates

the edges of what constitutes legitimate art (think

of his infamous 1975 Whitney Museum exhibition

which led to curator Marcia Tucker’s departure to

form the New Museum); his work explores formal

relationships even as it undermines them. The

material nature of Tuttle’s work argues primarily

for curiosity, spontaneity and joy requesting that

it be accepted at face value. It is no less aesthetic

for lack of visual seriousness; the artist’s conceptual

rigor leads to work that gives the sense

of making sense though it might not be obvious

why. This could be stated as the overt intention;

to subvert the leadenness of plain materials and

direct treatment in order to exploit the viewer’s

desire to transmute art objects through interaction.

The works’ materiality becomes something

akin to alchemy.

Richard Tuttle’s waferboard wall pieces illustrate

how the manipulation of materiality activates

the aesthetic effect Heiddeger refers to when he

states:


The art work is, to be sure, a thing that is made, but it says something other than

the mere thing itself is, allo agoreuei. The work makes public something other

than itself; it manifests something other; it is an allegory. In the work of art something

other is brought together with the thing that is made. 5

The thing that is made public is the artist’s point

of reference or assimilation of thought and feeling,

of experience. Through the artwork, allegory is created,

built or made, and then, finally, surrendered

to the world beyond the studio. The artwork then

extends a potential for resonance by suggesting an

idea or impression. It provides a point of departure

Materiality

18

for the imagination. Martin Buber, writing in 1937,

addressed a similarly nuanced reflection in I And

Thou when he wrote of men’s fundamental need

to be in wholehearted relationship to the world. 6

According to Buber, there is a small sense of things

encapsulated in simple, limited facts, and a large

sense that extends out into relationships that activate

everything with profound meaning. It is the

engagement, the interaction, that gives the large

sense described by Buber.

Other traditions emphasize the essentially

formless nature of reality while simultaneously

acknowledging the importance of form to communicate.

The finger pointing at the moon is not

the moon itself. Some resist using overt symbols,

providing non-symbolic or non-iconic expression

of emptiness realization. The idea of the necessity

of form to communicate is reiterated to

some degree in every culture. Visual allusion and

language function similarly in that they stand for

what they cannot fully represent. As with religious

concepts, it is understood that though “God” is

named the idea of god encompasses something

that naturally overwhelms any attempt to contain

or describe it.

The function of the name, in such a case, is similar

to the art concept. It is useful, though inaccurate.

What we talk about when we suggest an experience

of God, just as in the case of an experience

of art, is something else entirely. Such experiences

exist in an immaterial realm

By making asymmetrical pieces or pieces that may appear physically imperfect,

the artist is offering an opportunity to get involved in the piece and to help complete

the picture, or to even reflect on the seemingly imperfect nature of life itself. 7

Stated another way, what is encountered in art is

merely the suggestion of the thing and should be

understood as such. We talk around it and confirm

it in small ways, but do not have absolute confirmation

of the existence of an aesthetic affect.

Similarly, Jean-Paul Sartre refers to the problem of

the “other mind”. We cannot ever truly know what

lies within the mind of another individual. We infer,

we wonder, but can never confirm.

American art critic Arthur Danto (1924— ) holds

a pragmatic view. His view is in contrast to Wittgenstein’s

who saw the concept of art, like Heide-

19

gger, as an “open” one. According to Danto, art is

always about something which it represents; it

expresses the attitude or point of view of the artist

with respect to whatever it is about; it does this

by means of metaphor; metaphorical representation

and expression always depend on a historical

context; the content of artistic representation and

expression are largely constituted by interpretation.

Danto rejects the view that art is mimesis or

imitation and the view that art is a language with

special conventions. Danto references Andy Warhol’s

Brillo Boxes and describes the “method of

indiscernibles” whereby two objects identical to

perception are shown to have distinct identities,

differing either in ontological status or meaning.

b


The most striking contribution to have been made to our understanding of

art by the art world itself has been the generation of objects, ones in every

manifest regard like perfectly ordinary objects, things like bottle racks,

snow shovels, Brillo boxes, and beds. We are (1) to regard these “things” as

artworks, and not as the mere real objects from which they are indiscernible;

and (2) to be able to say what difference it makes that they should be

artworks and not mere real things. Indeed, I regard the matter of furnishing

answers to these questions the central issue in the philosophy of art. 8

The work of Eva Hesse provides an early example

of artwork that is tangibly based in materiality and

yet clearly not a “real thing” in Danto’s sense. Unlike

Tuttle, who explores more formal concerns, Hesse

explored a strong quality of allegory.

Upon returning to Germany after the end of the

Second World War, Hesse drew on her experience

20

As Heidegger suggests, the art work’s “thingly”

character is inarguably persuasive; in Hesse’s work,

it is essential. In her drawings from the period of

1945-47 Hesse explored the nature of precision,

systems and symmetry. Her later work shows an

evolution toward bolder, indeterminate forms,

again through its material nature. In this later work,

Hesse utilized resin, gauze and gravity to convey

the vulnerability and the folly of humanity. Furtherc

Materiality

to inform a story that is both personal and universal.

Initially, her work was influenced by working

in a studio that had previously housed a wartime

German machine shop. Many of the metal objects

represented in her work were cast away, forgotten.

As a Jew, Hesse was acutely aware of the implications

of machinery; its role in the Holocaust and

the industrial processing of human beings. She

eventually came to assert the value of humanity

through the transformation of industrial materials

such as rubber hose and latex. The biomorphic

quality of her work and its apparent fragility exaggerate

the intersection of organic principles and

industrial society.

All works have this thingly character.

What would they be without it? But

perhaps this rather crude and external

view of the work is objectionable to us.

. . But even the much-vaunted aesthetic

experience cannot get around the

thingly aspect of the art work. There is

something stony in a work of architecture,

wooden in a carving, colored in

a painting, spoken in a linguistic work,

sonorous in a musical composition.

The thingly element is so irremovably

present in the art work that we are

compelled rather to say conversely

that the architectural work is in stone,

the carving is in wood, thepainting in

color, the linguistic work in speech, the

musical composition in sound. 9

21

more, it is a challenge to separate appreciation of

her work from the knowledge that the materials

that she used were the likely cause of her death.

In her case, Hesse’s life itself became degraded by

the materiality of her work.

However, it would be a mistake to ascribe the value

of Hesse’s work solely to its autobiographical resonance.

Hesse painted through and off the canvas,

first extending objects beyond the traditional

ground and then discarding the wall as a platform.

She made objects that shared space with

the viewer. Her textural and visually tactile work

stresses biology and humor. Sensuous by nature,

Hesse’s mature work typifies embodiment in art.

Through such materiality, works of art take on lives

of their own, and by extension, dynamically engage

viewers. Sartre addressed materiality’s potential to

elicit this sense of embodiment when he wrote:


This leads us to believe that there occurred a transition from the imaginary to the

real. This is in no way true. That which is real, we must not fail to note, are the

results of the brush strokes, the stickiness of the canvas, its grain, the polish spread

over the colors. But all this does not constitute the object of esthetic appreciation.

What is “beautiful” is something which cannot be experienced as a perception

and which, by its very nature, is out of the world . . . The fact of the matter is that

the painter did not realize his mental image at all: he has simply constructed a

material analogue of such a kind that everyone can grasp the image provided he

looks at the analogue. 10

In Hesse’s art, the simplest forms come to represent

the most complex realities. The imaginative

component of beauty, as it is described by Sartre,

is understood to come as much from the process

of its unfolding as it does the intuitive material

choices of Hesse. The degree to which objects

embody a sense of physicality, what might be

described as their link to a sense of existing in

their own right, is also the degree to which they call

attention to the art-making process and how that

informs content. What characterizes the experience

of her art is the vascillation between the real

and the imagined.

And it is the configuration of these unreal objects that I designate as Beautiful.

The esthetic enjoyment is real but it is not grasped for itself, as if produced by

a real color: it is but a manner of apprehending the unreal object and, far from

being directed on the real painting, it serves to constitute the imaginary object

through the real canvas. 11

22

Materiality

So the aesthetic experience allows us to “apprehend”

the ideas art points to. In his essay “Creative

Intuition in Art and Poetry”, French philosopher

Jacques Maritain (1882-1973) wrote about the

idea of the inner quality in art, defining it with the

following three stages. Maritain asserts that first,

art transforms nature in order to disclose a reality.

Second, art liberates us from conventional natural

language. And third, art is ultimately a rejection of

reason and logic, an obscuring of plain meanings.

In these ways, Maritain suggests, art exits ordinary

realms and provides access to extraordinary truth.

As has always been the case, the degree to which

we are familiar with a subject determines its ability

to impact us.

3. Martin Heidegger. Poetry, Language,

Thought. Albert Hofstadter,

trans. (New York, New York. Harper

Collins Publishers. 1971), 44.



trans. New York, New York. Harper

Collins Publishers. 1971, 25.





10. Jean-Paul Sartre. The Psychology

of Imagination. (Seacaucus,

New Jersey. The Citadel Press,

1972), 177.

11. Ibid, 277.

a. Richard Tuttle, Ten , A, acrylic on

waferboard, 2000

b. Andy Warhol, Brillo Box, silkscreen

and paint on plywood , 1963-

1964.

c. Eva Hesse, Untitled, fiberglass on

rope armature, 1970

6. Martin Buber. I and Thou, (Edinburgh,

Great Brittain. T & T Clark).

1953.

7. Andrew Juniper. Wabi Sabi: The

Japanese art of Impermanence.

(North Clarendon, Vermont. Tuttle

Publishing. 2003), 157.

8. Arthur Danto. Philosophizing Art:

Selected Essays. (Berkeley and Los

Angeles, California. 1999), 212.





23

The Sacred and Profane:

Contemporary Painting

Through allegory and allusion, technique and

execution, works of art transform material into

forms that aim to transcend their simple states.

Jacques Maritain wrote, “What the artist seeks to

experience, the mystic seeks to transcend.” Considerations

of materiality and its coexistence with

spiritual concerns, as is described in Kandinsky, for

example, call into question Maritain’s statement.

It is not that simple. Almost universally, attitudes

exist about the incompatible intersection of physical

and spiritual reality. The tendency is to align

things, as opposed to thoughts and feelings, with

quotidian and worldly concerns is a means of simplifying

culture. Similarly, spiritual concepts are

mostly identified as non- material. Yet art can be

a manifestation of philosophy, of belief systems.

This tendency toward dichotomy extends to how

we view contemporary art as well. It explains why

such a variety of forms exist simultaneously at this

point in history, presenting so many representations

of thinking in absolutes while simultaneously

hovering as near as possible to paradox.

In some cases, viewers see works of art as sacred

objects made by people with special mystical

status. These art objects are viewed as reflecting

pure or transcendent states or profound human

knowledge. The work is thought to access an elevated

or transcendent reality and elicits a sense of

truth. Agnes Martin’s art, often intuitive and austere,

exhibits both mastery of the materials and

a depth of commitment, evident in her biography.

The work she produced while living alone in Taos,

New Mexico, arose from her isolation and a desire

to bring forth personal truth. Martin’s mature work

typifies the high value placed on extremely limited

means; singular, decisive marks, limited palette,


Materiality

24

lack of narrative or explanation, mathematical precision.

This work can be seen as manifesting purity

or perfection. Her work typifies the idea of internality

as it is brought forth from an inner source.

In Martin’s painting on linen from 1960, white

flower, the restrained, simple means project a

calm denial of the chaos of the world; a turning

toward the sacred, or ideal. In this painting there

is a sense of the artist subsumed by the practice

of art making. Martin did not seek subject matter

from external sources. Rather, for her, the work

was a meditation on perfection. Her approach was

constant and unwavering over the course of more

than thirty years. Derek Whitehead emphasizes

how works of art are able to transmit meaning

through form:

In human creativity the work of poiesis may be sensed as a kinetic gesturing: the

stroke of a brush, the shaping of a poem, the dexterous skill of a musician. Such

activities have a determined symmetry of parts and a distinct temper of being. Poetic

activity signals the emergence of a figure or rhythm — a transmissible figuration —

from the hand of the painter, poet, or musician. Genuine producing requires the

work of ‘the head’ and ‘the hands.’ Working with raw materials constitutes the kind

of producing which places itself in and through the created thing that is let be. 12

d

While the artist makes deliberate decisions to

utilize particular materials in a particular fashion,

there is an acknowledgement that an ineffable

quality of “letting be” must come through to the

viewer in works of art that we want to return to

25

again and again as they reveal that mysterious

sense of embodiment and the perpetually surprising

ability of inert material to encompass more

than empty form.

On the other end of the spectrum is work that

expresses the profane. It reflects the view that

truth is in everything, rather than its representation.

Such work expresses recognizable subject

matter, gives freedom to the expression of the

senses, and explores the world. Cecily Brown’s

sybaritic painting The Fugitive Kind is a counterpart

to Martin’s White Flower. Brown’s work is

indulgent, excessive and sensual. Her work reflects

our “lower” drives back to us. We are invited to

dive into the pleasure of sense memory and the

entertainment of pure form given force through

spontaneity, originality and surprise. We experience

a sense of reckless abandon and are drawn

to recognize the power and absurdity of the primal

forces that move us in our lives. The way the paint

is handled reflects the spontaneous force of the

subject matter. It provides a charge.

In a contemporary context, Brown’s painting is

“smart” because it draws on abstract expressionism’s

history but is made edgy by the fact that

Brown is a young woman painting representations

of what might be considered pornographic

imagery. Another example of work that has external

sources is that of Tony Fitzpatrick. In his work

entitled, The Other Sister, a work that reads like a

love letter, Fitzpatrick mines his personal history

through artifacts of American popular culture in

order to assemble collages of impressions and

dreams. He embraces symbols of personal icoe


26

f

Materiality

nography and urban life. Fitzpatrick’s passionate

work embraces nostalgia for the bygone era of

mid-twentieth century blue-collar experience: of

fistfights and going to the races, dice games and

carnivals, of pretty women and romantic love.

In all these types of painting, the minimalism of

Martin, the expressionism of Brown and the fetishism

of Fitzpatrick, materiality is the single most

important component to consider. It is the material

form of the work that provides the means by

which ideas are embodied. What and how the work

is made are the fundamental considerations in

understanding contemporary art’s effect. This is

true irregardless of content or style. Materiality has

primacy over and informs all other methodological

considerations.

12. Derek Whitehead. The Artist’s

Labor. Contemporary Aesthetics,

Vol. 5, 2007.\

d. Agnes Martin, White Flower, oil on

canvas, 71 7/8” x 72”, 1960.

e. Cecily Brown, The Fugitive Kind, oil

on linen, 229 cm x 190.5 cm, 2000

f. Tony Fitzpatrick, The Other Sister,

mixed media, 10” x 13”, 2005

27

Physical Constructs:

Performance & Installation Art

Materiality’s significance in art is well established

in the writings of the German philosopher Emmanuel

Kant (1724-1804). According to Kant, viewers

must funnel their responses to art objects through

their corporeal understanding in order to arrive at

points beyond their physical selves. In other words,

physical sensations help establish understanding

of art. Peter De Bolla describes Kant’s ideas here

in the article, “Toward the Materiality of Aesthetic

Experience”.


These judgments of taste have a

number of distinct qualities. In the first

place they are grounded in feelings of

pleasure or pain. Secondly, they are

immediate, which for Kant signifies

that they are not based on a process of

reasoning. Thirdly, these judgments are

particular; they are the result of an individual

experiencing subject responding

to a specific object. Fourthly, the

judgment is nonconceptual, not based

upon our cognitive judgments, which

in Kant’s critical philosophy would

make reflective judgments equivalent

to determinant judgments. For this

reason aesthetic judgment is said to be

imaginative. Fifthly, aesthetic judgments

are subjective, in spite of the

fact that they must also have universal

validity by which they not only apply to

the person making the judgment but to

all other persons. 13

Kant’s system for arriving at criteria for the aesthetic

experience could be summarized as follows:

judgments are grounded in feeling and they are

immediate; they are particular; and they are not

conceptual and are subjective. From the viewer’s

perspective, the effect that stems from engaging

with the work of art is based in something concrete

as a reaction or response. Kant further claims

that part of the process includes states of seeking

Materiality

28

and finding the subjective sense of the thing. As

viewers we ask ourselves, does it please or displease

and why?

From the artist’s perspective, the experience of

making the work stands in contrast to the viewer’s

experience in the following ways. It is deliberate

and evolves over time. It is general in that

many forms could suffice. The artist funnels what

is amorphous and indeterminate into something

concrete with material form, the work of art. This

leads to the realization that the aesthetic experience,

grounded in works’ of art materiality, is the

meeting point of the viewer’s experience on one

pole and the artist’s experience on the other pole.

It is the point of relationship to employ a term of

Martin Buber. 14 As a construct represents the small,

definitive and limited sense of a thing whereas

Thou encompasses the largest and most infinite

interpretation whereby there can exist a sense of

transcendent interconnectivity, of divinity.

g

Performance art, as an immaterial form of visual

art, capitalizes on the idea of the viewer’s aesthetic

experience by positioning the viewer within the

work as it occurs. In no other form of visual art is

the audience more aware of its role in the completion

of the piece. The performance, temporal

and ephemeral by nature, inserts the viewer into

29

the piece, requiring a level of engagement with the

work that is difficult to generate in two-dimensional,

non-experiential works. Confronted with

the art “situation”, the audience’s response arises

as the work is performed and demands an element

of spontaneity to provides completion. Giving

a sense of “real” experience, which is by nature

unpredictable, the performance exposes the artist

and thrusts her into a realm of immediacy.

Performance artist Marina Abramovic creates

work that questions fundamental assumptions

related to the limits of personal boundaries, both

the artist’s and the viewers’. Her work explores the

bodily experience of physicality in the world, probing

and seeking a visceral response in the viewer

and pushing at the limits of viewers’ willingness

to engage with works of art. Her work also challenges

the limits of endurance and safety, blurring

the lines between private and public spheres. The

materiality of the work, expressed through corporeality,

that is bodies, eyes, hands and voice,

becomes analogous with experience itself—it is

fleeting and immediate.


h

By locating the viewer within his or her personal

experience, Abramavic’s performances provide

a heuristic experience, an experience of learning

through doing. In Imponderabilia, 1977, she and

her partner, Ulay, stood opposite one another in

a hall leading into the gallery hosting their exhibition.

The artists, a man and woman, were nude.

The close quarters of the hall required that those

entering the space in order to view the “show”

squeeze past the artists, choosing which to face,

ostensibly confronting their internal responses to

Materiality

30

the unpredictable, even anarchic, situation. In the

case of Abramovic, as with much performance

art, the work’s materiality is an extension of the

artist’s willingness to transform her body into the

object or vehicle of meaning. Abramovic seeks a

visceral, emotional response. In most cases, she

is unsure of what will transpire in the course of

the performance. Peter De Bolla, in his writing

on Kant’s aesthetic theory as it pertains to what

can be called “thingness”, the art object’s intrinsic

versus extrinsic qualities, expressed a significant

consideration. He wrote,

So we extrapolate from an experience qualities which are then deemed to be

inherent to the thing we have experienced—it is “as if” the beautiful or the sublime

were a quality of the object itself. 15

And yet we must admit that determination of

beauty or sublimity is relative to other states and

wholly open to interpretation. Nothing, then, can

be deemed objectively beautiful or objectively

sublime. Whether through the verbal exploration

or documentation of artwork, descriptive language

calls for viewers to label works. Those are loose

associations, however. The artworks themselves

evoke responses and ask to be considered and

verbal expression is the most frequent manifestation

of those responses. According to Danto’s

contemporary aesthetic theory and, as Heidegger

had observed years before, works of art are open

propositions and not easily amenable to verbal

interpretation. This is certainly the case with most

performance art and its documentation.

Works of art even remain open despite the intentionality

of the artist. The work’s meaning is suggested,

supported and expanded by its material

form, or in the case of performance art, its lack

of material form. Artists, ultimately, strive to connect

and empathize; to emphasize and illuminate

ontological constructs. Expressing a different

viewpoint on the same subject Kant writes,

To be happy is necessarily the desire of every rational but finite being, and thus

it is an unavoidable determinant of its faculty of desire. Contentment with our

existence is not, as it were, an inborn possession or bliss, which would presuppose

a consciousness of our self-sufficiency; it is rather a problem imposed upon us by

31

Ritual is the attempt, usually a group

attempt, to control power, and sacrifice

in particular is the control of that most

imposing power which is the life-force.

Now interiorization does not mean

giving up on external struggles and satour

own finite nature as a being of needs. These needs are directed to the material

of the faculty of desire, i.e., to that which is related to a basic subjective feeling

of pleasure or displeasure, determining what we require in order to be satisfied

with our condition. 16

In either case, the act of engaging with the work of

art as it was intended, to be physically in the presence

of the work and so willing on some level to be

moved by it, puts the viewer in the frame of mind

that makes the experience of the work, the aesthetic

experience, available. Stated another way,

acknowledgement of the importance of artwork’s

materiality, of its ability to engage physically with

the viewer, is what makes art possible. Without

physical proximity, the art event does not occur.

When we look at secondary sources, that is, representations

of works of art, what we experience is

merely an exchange of information; this is not the

aesthetic experience per se.

The idea of interiorization, of taking into oneself

what one experiences, is also important with

regard to materiality in art. How accessible the

work seems influences the viewer’s sense of being

able to enter into the work and thereby access

its meaning. Works of art can function as ritual

objects, opportunities to meditate on thought

and feeling and on meaning itself. As is so aptly

described by Eknath Easwara,


isfactions—very difficult for the mind to

do, when the external field is all it can

“see”—but rather reaching the centre

of the field, beyond what the whirling

mind can dream of, where all satisfaction

is achieved for human beings. .17

It could be argued that by locating abstractions

of thought and feeling in material objects or notable

experiences, as in the case of performance or

film, we gain a better understanding of the world

beyond our immediate selves—like ritual, we channel

beliefs and understanding through things. This

ability can function as an antidote to solipsistic

tendencies. By sensing and recognizing what we

Materiality

32

value in the artwork as a relic of the artist’s experience,

we are provided a mirror to ourselves.

Without considerations of “what is it” and subsequently,

“what it means” this would be impossible.

The continual questioning required of the artist in

order to engage with and produce her work can

result in the work of art being exceptionally refined

and focused while maintaining the vitality of being

indeterminate and evolving.

The degree to which the artist is required to

engage with the material becomes another aspect

of meaning. Art provides a unique means by which

we can explore these intangible realms with no

immediate consequence. Works of art, though

they provide reference points and impressions,

exist outside of ordinary experience.

Two things fill the mind with ever new

and increasing wonder and awe, the

oftener and more steadily we reflect

on them: the starry heavens above

me and the moral law within me. I do

not merely conjecture them and seek

them as though obscured in darkness

or in the transcendent region beyond

my horizon: I see them before me,

and I associate them directly with the

consciousness of my own existence.

The heavens begin at the place I

occupy in the external world of sense,

and broaden the connection in which

I stand into an unbounded magnitude

of worlds beyond worlds and systems

of systems and into the limitless times

of the periodic motion, their beginning

and their duration. The latter begins at

my invisible self, my personality, and

exhibits me in a world which has true

infinity but which is comprehensible

only to the understanding—a world with

which I recognize myself as existing

in a universal and necessary (and not,

as in the first case, merely contingent)

connection, and thereby also in connection

with all those visible worlds.

The former view of a countless multitude

of worlds annihilates, as it were,

my importance as an animal creature,

which must give back to the planet (a

mere speck in the universe) the matter

from which it came, the matter which

is for a little time provided with vital

force, we know not how. 18

Kant, in writing of “unbounded magnitude of

worlds” highlights how aesthetic considerations

function as a means by which we define areas of

attraction and repulsion. They also allow artists

and viewers, alike, to isolate concepts for consideration,

and produce exchanges of encapsulated

experience. Because the work of art possesses

a sense of embodiment via material qualities, it

provides a link between being and meaning. Kant’s

writing dances around the edges of metaphysical

discourse, expressing the basic human desire to

exist individually in the world while also celebrating

33

i

the experience of interconnectedness.

Austrian philosopher Ludwig Wittgenstein (1889-

1951) wrote something similar about the essence

of seeing in the idea of pure seeing; he argued the

difference between interpretation, which implies

a hypothesis and seeing as a state. 19 He suggested

that philosophy is the elimination of nonsense and

that aesthetics and the mystical are shown, not

said, because they are about one’s relationship to

the facts. In this way, art exploits and transcends

its own material bounds.


j

According to Wittgenstein, works of art, in all their

forms are bound by an aesthetic that surpasses

the simple requirements of beauty. We must ask,

is that true? Is it beautiful? The object will speak

and reply if it is true. If it is true it will resonate with

us; it is therefore beautiful. This sense of beauty,

via the art object, is also transferred through the

object’s material aspects.

Consider the work of Tara Donovan: she gained

acclaim for her work entitled Haze, 2003, an

34

Materiality

installation of plastic straws, the kind you would

find at any generic fast food restaurant in America.

Lilly Wei described the work, (Art in American, July

2003) “. . . extending climbing twelve-and-a-half

feet, its ruffled upper edge incandescent, rimmed

by light. . . between the audacity of the scale and

the simplicity of the concept, something uncanny

occurred.” 20 Donovan’s work typically utilizes an

accumulation of unaltered ordinary objects to

draw on the recently established legitimacy of the

readymade object while referencing meditative

processed of repetition.

The installation encompassed an expanse of wall

at the far end of the gallery, an undulating form,

a luminous vertical topography. Donovan, utilizes

expendable materials to create works of formal,

pristine beauty. The forms echo sublime natural

realms of desert zones, natural beauty on a grand

scale encapsulated in the finite space of an exhibition

and comprised of materials we understand

to be destined for the land fill. Consider, as an exercise,

the utilization of #2 pencils instead of plastic

straws. We can imagine the strong presence of the

institution, the reflection of flat yellow instead of

the luminous white light filtered through thin white

plastic. The effect, though formally similar, would

be entirely different.

13. Peter De Bolla. Toward the Materiality

of Aesthetic Experience.

Diacritics, Spring 2002, 19-37.

http://2390.muse.jhu.edu/journals/diacritics/v032/32.1bola.pdf.

27 (accessed Aug. 15, 2009).

14. Martin Buber. I And Thou.

(Edinburgh, Great Brittain. T & T

Clark). 1953.

15. Ibid, 25.

16. Lewis White Beck(Ed.). Kant:

Critique of Practical Reason.

New York, New York. Macmillan

Publishing Co. 1993, 24.

19. B.R. Tilghman (Ed.). Wittgenstein,

Ethics and Aesthetics: The View

from Eternity. (Albany, New York:

State University of New York

Press. 1991), 132.

20. Lili Wei. Materialist. Art in America,

July 2003. http://findarticles.

com/p/articles/mi_m1248/

is_10_91/ ai_109667932/print

(accessed Jan. 15, 2009)

g. Marina Abramovic, Imponderabilia,

performance, 1977

h. Marina Abramovic, Lips of Thomas,

performance, 1975

17. Kaswara, Eknath. The Upanishads.

(Tomales, California. Nilgiri, Press.

1987), 273.

18. Lewis White Beck (Ed.). Kant:

Critique of Practical Reason.

(New York, New York. Macmillan

Publishishing Co. 1993), 169.

i. Marina Abramovic, The Conditioning

of Gina Pane, 1973

j. Tara Donovan, Untitled (Cups),

installation of plastic cups, 2006

35

Digital Art

The subject of materiality in art is interesting to

consider in the context of the digital era, a period

of time characterized by almost instantaneous

remote communication via e-mail, cellular telephone

and instant messaging and by an unprecedented

ease in the exchange of vast amounts of

information. The abundance in the contemporary

world and the speed of its transmission have created

a new environment for art. As a result, viewers

are increasingly located in a liminal space devoid

of physicality in a usual sense.

Viewers have adapted to the temporal nature of

film, video and television and highly mediated,

temporary experiences largely associated with

entertainment versus high art. Yet in a fine art

context, our immersion in a popular culture that

is rife with moving images, makes temporal work

accessible to a larger number of people in a nonart

audience. Furthermore, film and video in particular

are fixed as art objects that can be revisited

from time to time for durations of time. They simulate

a looping reality. In an excerpt from Arthur

Danto’s writing in Philosophizing Art, he wrote,


A way of viewing the world is revealed when it has jelled and thickened into a kind

of spiritual artifact, and despite the philosophical reminders our self- conscious

cineastes interpose between their stories and their audiences, their vision—perhaps

in contrast with their style—will take a certain historical time before it becomes visible.

In whatever way we are conscious of consciousness, consciousness is not an

object for itself; and when it becomes an object, we are, as it were, already beyond

it and relating to the world in modes of consciousness which are for the moment

hopelessly transparent. 21

Materiality

36

This view is illustrated in the installation work of

video artist Bill Viola. Because it is a temporal form,

video art, as with other forms of moving pictures,

emphasizes time as a setting. In Viola’s work the

viewer experiences an implied distance from the

object; the glowing image, be it projected or contained

within a monitor. The overarching religious

themes of surrender to life as an energetic form

in Viola’s video installations are enhanced by the

ephemeral nature of flickering light on a screen.

Viola’s work explores Buddhist and Christian religious

philosophy in work that, through his thirty-year

career, has become increasingly direct,

formally, while emphasizing the ephemeral quality

of video. The light image is the material aspect

of the work in this case. Projected light points to

the transitory nature of phenomena in general,

and to mind states, in particular. Relating human

emotion to elemental forces like water and fire,

Viola invokes symbols of transmutation such as

baptism and emoliation.

The quality of the image that results from use of

film or digital video, respectively, impacts both the

meaning of the work as do methods of installation

and scale. As a medium, film is a non-object that is

inherently empty; a representation of light touching

the surface of things. This material aspect

serves Viola’s intention well. Danto writes,

Perhaps films are like consciousness is, as described by Sartre, with two distinct, but

inseparable, dimensions: consciousness of something as its intentional object and a

kind of nonthetic consciousness of the consciousness itself—and it is with reference

to the latter that the intermittent reminders of the cinematic processes as such are

to be appreciated. 22

This high degree of self-awareness, described here

by Danto, has manifested since post-modern discourse

came to center around relative states of

truth and means by which self-referential forms

of art augmented the intellectually perceived

conceptual aesthesis. In the last decade, considerations

of art’s material qualities have become

germane to developments in photographic

art-making practices and the general acknowledgment

of equality between images developed

by traditional means, with the use of film and darkrooms,

and images that are digitally produced and

printed with the use of computers. There is a dif-

37

ference in the feeling of the work. For one, it exists

in time, more like performance. It is also developed

through the requirements of technological processes

that impact its final look. There is an inherent

difference in objects that originate through

different processes, yet the removal of the artist’s

hand in the work does not categorically lead to a

distancing effect. These aspects of materiality are

available for interpretation upon viewing as visual

effects that bring awareness to the art-making

process and establish the link between what the

work is, and what it means.

k


Most recently, this discussion is relevant to developments

in photographic art- making practices

that posit equality between images developed

by traditional (100 year old) means in darkrooms

and digitally produced and printed images. The

methods by which art is produced also impacts

meaning via the experience of process by artists

in its production; there exists innate differences

on several levels between stone objects carved by

38

hand versus ones made with power tools. Modes

of production are understood to influence volume

of work, states of mind of the maker and what is

required in order to use particular technologies

including limitation of scale and output. Material

considerations also influence numbers of people

that can view or experience works of art.

Materiality

Significant shifts in visual art in the wake

of conceptualism displaced key aspects

of Kantian-derived aesthetic theory. Premised

on a positive and disinterested

pleasure in the play of formal appearances,

Kant’s articulation of judgments

of beauty as rejected in anti-aesthetic

polemics because of its perceived complicity

with vested institutional and

market interests. Idealizing notions

of beauty were dismissed as offering a

fraudulent escape from institutional

and social determinations. At the same

time, sublime feeling, which, writes Kant,

arises from the perceptual disorder of an

encounter with something that exceeds

representation, was also downplayed in

anti-aesthetic postmodernism. 23

While conceptual art took a step away from the

high value placed on mastery of materials and the

exaltation of the materiality of the object, the fact

remains that art is inherently aesthetic. Art is, by

nature, concerned with an expression or exploration

of value, and cannot be understood outside of

that context; while we choose to “reject” aesthetics

as an aspect of expression in art, it is undeniable

that the idea of the aesthetic is primary in all

considerations of production. Furthermore, aesthetics

are expressed exclusively through things

and events, namely, through materiality.

Materiality significantly informs the content of

contemporary art and forms the cornerstone of

its conceptual ground. The significance of material

choices is exaggerated in the current digital age

as we become more accustomed to interacting in

immaterial digital realms. At present, art provides

a much-needed anchor for embodiment—a manifestation

of human touch, of recognizable effects

of human endeavor—during a time that could be

largely characterized as an age of disembodiment,

a time when many of us are disconnected from

the vast amounts of information to which we are

privy, the very information that, from a distance,

informs our world.

As we encounter objects in the world, we see that

generally what is made exists to fulfill a clear, functional

purpose. It exists only to embody ideas and

39

l


does this through materiality. The aesthetic experience

that results from a face-to-face encounter

with art in all its forms, has the potential for the

viewer out of ordinary thinking and into a primarily

reflective mode. Materiality in art leads, always, to

a sense of “feeling” that is embodied in the viewer’s

imagination and the unpredictably abstract

aesthetic experience.

21. Arthur Danto. Philosophizing

Art: Selected Essays. (Berkeley

and Los Angeles, California.

1999), 231.

22. Arthur Danto. Philosophizing

Art: Selected Essays. (Berkeley

and Los Angeles, California.

1999), 231.

k. Bill Viola, The Crossing, synchronized

color video installation, 1996

l. Bill Viola, The Crossing, synchronized

color video installation, 1996

23. Toni Ross. Art in the “Post-Medium”

Era: Aesthetics and Conceptualism

in the Art of Jeff Wall. The

South Atlantic Quarterly, Duke

University Press. 2002. http://

z3950.muse.jhu.edu/journals/

sough_atlantic_quarterly/

v101/101.3ross.html, 2 (accessed

Jan. 15, 2009).

Materiality

40

The art work is, to be sure, a thing that is

made, but it says something other than

the mere thing itself is, allo agoreuei.

by Martin Heidegger

42

What You See, Unseen

Brian

Jungen

43

Brian Jungen was born in 1970 on a family farm north of Fort St.

John, British Columbia. His father was Swiss born and immigrated

to British Columbia with his family when he was three years old.

Jungen’s mother was Aboriginal, a member of the Dane-zaa Nation.

Jungen was seven years old when both his parents perished in a fire.

After which he was raised by his fathers’ sister and her husband.

Jungen recalls his mother’s ability to adapt objects to new uses,

something he now famously does within his artistic practice. He

recalls “She was constantly trying to extend the life of things, packages,

utensils. Once we had to use the back end of a pickup truck

as an extension for our hog pen.”

In 1988 he moved to Vancouver to attend the Emily Carr Institute

of Art and Design. He graduated four years later with a Diploma of

Visual Art. After which he moved to Montreal and New York City prior

to returning to Vancouver.

In 1998 he took part in a self-directed residency at The Banff Centre

for the Arts, Banff, Alberta. This residency would become the tipping

point in his career. As it was there that he began to work on his now

famous Prototypes for New Understanding (1998-2005); a series

of sculptures he created by disassembling and reassembling Nike

Air Jordan sneakers to resemble Northwest Coast Aboriginal masks.

He would go on to explore his interest in using sports paraphernalia

creating sculptures out of catchers mitts, baseball bats, and basket

ball jerseys. Jungen has stated that it is a deliberate choice to create

works out of materials produced by the sports industry; an industry

that appropriates Aboriginal terminology, such as the team names

The Chiefs, Indians, Redskins and Braves. However Jungen’s work is

not exclusively tied to his heritage. He has stated “My involvement

with my family and traditions is personal - it’s not where my art

comes from.”

His interest in architecture and in particular Buckminster Fuller is

also evident in his practice with his creation of multiple shelters for

humans, animals and birds. Overriding the majority of his work is

Jungen’s ability to disassemble and reassemble objects maintaining

the integrity and meaning of his source material and yet creating

new possibilities for meaning Shapeshifter (2000) / Transmutation

(2000).

Brian Jungen

44


Owl Drugs, 2016.

Nike Air Jordans, brass.

64.1 × 57.2 × 53.3 cm

45


Materiality

46

47


48


THIS WILL BE NOT ALRIGHT, 2016.


64.1 × 57.2 × 53.3 cm

49

Brian Jungen

UNDERSTAND THE LIGHT IN ALL DIRECTIONS,

2018


64.1 × 57.2 × 53.3 cm

Materiality

50

51

Brian Jungen

HORSE MASK (CHER) 2016


64.1 × 57.2 × 53.3 cm

52


Choi

Jeong

Hwa

53

Using a wide variety of materials- from shopping trolleys to video to

food- Choi Jeong Hwa’s playful practice comments on the privileged

status of art and its institution. His most well-known installations

are spectacular inflatable blooms. These colorful public works create

a bridge between the modern world and the cosmological realm

of Asian symbolism. The lotus, as a symbol of purity and divinity, is

rewritten as an immortal icon of commodity culture. And avid collector

of urban detritus, Choi Jeong Hwa is regarded as a founding

member of the Korean Pop Art movement.

Using a broad range of media and materials including video, molded

plastic, inflatable fabrics, shopping trolleys, real and fake food, lights,

wires, and kitsch Korean artifacts, Choi Jeong-Hwa’s practice blurs

the boundaries between art, graphic design, industrial design, and

architecture. Along with artists such as Bahc Yiso, Beom Kim, and

Lee Bul, Choi was part of a generation whose unique and varied practices

gave rise to Seoul’s burgeoning art scene in the 1990s. Trained

in Korea during a period of rapid modernization and economic

growth, Choi’s work acknowledges and internalizes the processes

of consumption and the distribution of goods and has resulted in his

being recognized as the leader of Korea’s pop art movement. Often

infusing his works with a hint of humor, Choi creates a monumental

installation with everyday objects. His works also touch on issues

of accessibility in art and contemporary culture, concepts of individual

authorship and originality in art, and they comment on the

privileged environment of art institutions and the prized status of

artworks amidst a consumer-frenzied world.

Choi Jeong Hwa

54


Alchemy, 2018

mixed media

225 x 70 x 70 cm

88 9/16 x 27 9/16 x 27 9/16 inches

55

Choi Jeong Hwa

Alchemy, 2017

Mixed media

170 x 30 x 30 cm

66 15/16 x 11 13/16 x 11 13/16 inches

Materiality

56

57


Materiality

58

59

Choi Jeong Hwa

Alchemy, 2018

Mixed media

80 3/10 × 11 4/5 × 11 4/5 in

204 × 30 × 30 cm

Materiality

60

61


62


Ellen

Gallagher

63

Ellen Gallagher was born in Providence, Rhode Island, in 1965, and

lives and works in New York and Rotterdam, Holland. She attended

Oberlin College and the School of the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston.

Repetition and revision are central to Gallagher’s treatment

of advertisements that she appropriates from popular magazines

like Ebony, Our World, and Sepia and uses in works like eXelento

(2004) and DeLuxe (2004–05). Initially, Gallagher was drawn to the

wig advertisements because of their grid-like structure. Later, she

realized that it was the accompanying language that attracted her,

and she began to bring these “narratives” into her paintings—making

them function through the characters of the advertisements,

as a kind of chart of lost worlds.

Although the work has often been interpreted strictly as an examination

of race, Gallagher also suggests a more formal reading with

respect to materials, processes, and insistences. From afar, the work

appears abstract and minimal; upon closer inspection, googly eyes,

reconfigured wigs, tongues, and lips of minstrel caricatures multiply

in detail. Gallagher has been influenced by the sublime aesthetics

of Agnes Martin’s paintings, as well the subtle shifts and repetitions

of Gertrude Stein’s writing. In her earlier works, Gallagher

glued pages of penmanship paper onto stretched canvas and then

drew and painted on it. In Watery Ecstatic (2002–04), she literally

carved images into thick watercolor paper, in her own version of

scrimshaw, from which emerge images of the sea creatures from

Drexciya, a mythical underwater Black Atlantis.

Ellen Gallagher

64


Wiglette from DeLuxe, 2004

photogravure and plasticine,

33 x 26.6 cm each, 13 x 10 1/2 in. each

Deluxe, 2004-5

acrylic, plasticine, photogravure, googly eyes on paper collage on

paper, 13 x 10 in

65

Ellen Gallagher

Deluxe, 2004-5

60 works on paper, etching, screenprint, lithograph with plasticine,

velvet, toy eyeballs and coconut oil

2149 × 4527 mm

Materiality

66

67


68


Deluxe, 2004-5



2149 × 4527 mm

69

Ellen Gallagher

Deluxe, 2004-5



2149 × 4527 mm

Materiality

70

71

Ellen Gallagher

La Chinoise, 2008

Pencil, ink, oil, watercolour and cut paper on paper

72


Janine

Antoni

73

Janine Antoni is a contemporary American artist known for her performances

and sculptural installations. Antoni’s Gnaw (1992), is an

example of the artist using her body as a tool for sculpture. In the

work, she chewed 600-pound cubes of chocolate, then the same

quantity of lard, until she was too exhausted to continue. “The reason

I’m so interested in taking my body to those extreme places is

that that’s a place where I learn, where I feel most in my body,” she

once explained. “I’m really interested in the repetition, the discipline,

and what happens to me psychologically when I put my body to

that extreme place.”

Lick and Lather also took its lead from art history. On two rows of

facing pedestals, Antoni arranged 14 self-portrait busts, seven in

chocolate and seven in soap. Each of the sculptures had undergone

different degrees of defacement; the artist had cast herself and was

in the process of licking and washing herself away. The installation

was at once historical and contemporary; it was embodied in the

tradition of classical self-portraiture and was body art for the late

twentieth century. More than any artist of her generation (she was

born in 1964), Antoni has fashioned from her own body and its intimacies

an art of visceral delicacy. Her tools and her processes are

uncommon, from tightrope walking to steam shovels, from using

her teeth as a carving tool to re-casting silver in the form of the

inside of her mouth. But the effect of the materials she uses, and

what she does with them, resonates in her audience like memory

and blood.

Born on January 19, 1964 in Freeport, Bahamas, she received her

BA from Sarah Lawrence College in 1986 and her MFA from Rhode

Island School of Design in 1989. Antoni cites both Robert Smithson

and Louise Bourgeois as major influences on her practice. Over

the course of her career, she has received a Painting and Sculpture

Grant from the Joan Mitchell Foundation, a MacArthur Fellowship,

and a Larry Aldrich Foundation Award. Antoni currently lives and

works in New York, NY. Today, her works are held in the collections

of the National Gallery of Art in Washington, D.C., the Art Institute of

Chicago, and The Museum of Modern Art in New York, among others.

Janine Antoni

74


Gnaw, 1992

600 lb lard and chocolate cube gnawed by the artist

75

Janine Antoni

Gnaw comprises two

600-pound cubes – one of

chocolate, the other of lard –

and a three-paneled, mirrored

cosmetic display case. Using

her mouth as a tool, Antoni

nibbled the corners of both

cubes, leaving visible teeth

marks in the material.

Materiality

76

77

Janine Antoni

Lick and Lather, 1993

Seven licked chocolate self-portrait busts and seven washed soap

self-portrait busts

78

To make Eureka, Antoni submerged herself in a tub filled to the brim with

lard. Once submerged, she re-flattened the lard at the top of the tub, removing

what her body had displaced. The removed lard was mixed with lye and

water to make a cube of soap. The artist then washed with the cube, slowly

rounding its edges by repeated bathings.


This sculpture is inspired by a story of Archimedes. One day, the king asked

Archimedes how much gold was in his crown. Archimedes was trying his

best to figure out how to answer this question. One night while bathing, he

realized that his body was displacing the water in his tub. He could answer

the king’s question by doing the same experiment with the crown. The

submerged crown would displace the amount of water equal to its volume.

Archimedes jumped out of the tub, screamed “Eureka!” and ran through the

streets naked.

Like Archimedes’ body, the artist’s body becomes the instrument by which

she understands and makes meaning. Antoni is interested in what we can

know through the body and how she might elicit empathy in the viewer

through their imagining what she has physically done to make her objects.

Eureka, 1993

Bathtub, lard, soap, and Dorian

79

Janine Antoni

Saddle, 2000

Full rawhide

27 x 32 x 79 inches (68.58 x 81.29 x 200.66 cm)

80


Jeffrey

Gibson

81

Jeffrey Gibson is a multidisciplinary artist and craftsperson merging

traditional Native American materials and forms with those of

Western contemporary art to create a new hybrid visual vocabulary.

Gibson, a member of the Mississippi Band of Choctaw Indians

and of Cherokee descent, is forging a multifarious practice that

redresses the exclusion and erasure of indigenous art traditions

from the history of Western art as it explores the complexity and

fluidity of identity.

Gibson’s pieces range from garments and sculptural objects to

paintings and video and often involve intricately detailed and technically

demanding handwork using materials such as beads, metal

jingles, fringe, and elk hide. Mixed with references from popular

culture, queer iconography, and contemporary political issues,

the materials take on a different meaning while also calling into

question the line distinguishing contemporary art from traditional

modes of cultural production. For example, Gibson transforms the

punching bag—a common symbol of male heterosexual norms—

into anthropomorphic sculptures ornamented with brightly colored

beads and fringe skirts that evoke fashion, play with camp sensibilities,

and speak to shifting gender identities. Many of the bags

include text, pithy phrases, or song lyrics, such as “From a whisper

to a scream” or “I put a spell on you,” that speak to societal hopes

and anxieties and serve as springboards for viewers’ associations.

In a series of oversized, tunic-like garments created between 2014

and 2018, Gibson derives the basic form from nineteenth-century

ceremonial Ghost Dance shirts, which were believed to deflect bullets.

They are constructed from fabric custom printed with original

photographs and newspaper headlines, some of which refer

to the continued marginalization of Native Americans through the

destruction of sacred lands at Standing Rock and Big Ears National

Monument.

Gibson’s painting practice foregrounds affinities between patterns,

colors, and materials long used in Native American art and

those characteristic of contemporary Western. His investigations

of color relationships and use of the grid as a structuring device

engage with the history of geometric abstraction, but the pieces

also recall weaving and use materials (such as elk hide canvasses,

sinew, and beads) found in indigenous art. In resisting preconceived

notions about what the work of a Native American artist should

look like, Gibson is prompting a shift in how Native American art is

perceived and historicized.

Jeffrey Gibson

82


Like A Hammer, 2014

mixed media

84 1/8” X 26 7/8” X 13 7/8”

83

Jeffrey Gibson

Come Alive! (I Feel Love), 2016

mixed media

66.25” X 28” X 15”

Materiality

84

85


86


ONE BECOMES THE OTHER, 2015

Re-purposed punching bag, glass beads, artificial sinew, and steel

40 x 14 x 14 inches (101.6 x 35.6 x 35.6 cm).

87

Jeffrey Gibson

I PUT A SPELL ON YOU, 2015

Re-purposed punching bag, glass beads, artificial sinew, and steel

40 x 14 x 14 inches (101.6 x 35.6 x 35.6 cm).

Materiality

88

89

Jeffrey Gibson

SPEAK TO ME IN YOUR WAY SO I CAN HEAR YOU, 2015

mixed media

72 1/2 x 53 x 112 in

184 x 135 x 285 cm

90


AMERICAN HISTORY (JB), 2015

Wool, Steel studs, Glass beads, Artificial sinew, Metal jingles, Acrylic

yarn, Nylon fringe, canvas

89 x 66 x 5 in / 226 x 168 x 13 cm

IN TIME WE COULD HAVE BEEN SO MUCH MORE, 2015

Wool, steel studs, glass beads, artificial sinew, metal jingles, canvas,

wood

61 x 72 x 4 in / 155 x 183 x 10 cm

91

Jeffrey Gibson

THE ONLY WAY OUT IS THROUGH, 2015

Glass beads, Wool, Canvas, Artificial sinew, Steel studs over wood panel

40 x 30 in / 102 x 76 cm

92


Kevin

Beasley

93

Kevin Beasley was born in Lynchburg, Virginia, in 1985. He attended

the College of Creative Studies, Detroit, where he studied automotive

design before graduating with a BFA in painting and sculpture

(2007) and an MFA in sculpture from Yale University, New Haven

(2012). Working in the media of sculpture, installation, sound, and

video, Beasley combines disparate found materials including personal

ephemera, studio debris, and samples from various musical

genres to produce works that embody their process of creation

while also defamiliarizing the everyday objects and cultural references

of which they are composed. Beasley has created sculptures

and installations made from found materials, including clothing,

sports equipment, personal artifacts, and cultural ephemera. Using

polyurethane foam and resin to give these objects their own solidity

and form, Beasley molds them into wall assemblages and standalone

sculptures. T-shirts, colorful house dresses, and durags take

their own haunting shape, referencing the bodies that may have

once inhabited them. These items weave together Beasley’s own

memories and experiences, along with historical and cultural references,

in order to examine the role of power and race in American

society. Beasley also incorporates microphones, audio processors,

and mixers into his works, activating the sculptures through live

performances. Interested in the tactile dimension of sound, Beasley

connects sound production and the movement of the physical body

through his performances and sound installations.

Beasley’s sculptures are novel hybrids of assemblage and process

art. The artist takes found objects—most often clothing—as his

starting point and excavates their personal and cultural meanings.

Using malleable substances like resin and polyurethane foam as

the glue that holds the items together, Beasley produces his sculptures

through a process of molding and manipulating the adhesive

material and objects into a final form. He works for only as long as

the resin takes to harden, allowing the inherent properties of the

material to establish the temporal boundaries of the process and

the finished form of the sculpture. The final sculptures, which suggest

the detritus of modern culture embedded in molten strata,

index their own process of creation, with the actions of the artist’s

body impressed on their surface.

Kevin Beasley

94


SLAB XIII (ALTERNATE VIEW) 2019

64.1 × 57.2 × 53.3 cm

Slab VII, 2019

95.5 x 76.5 x 4.5 (inch)

95

Kevin Beasley

Slab VIII, 2019

95.5 x 76.5 x 4.5 (inch)

96


UNTITLED (STANDING BLOCK 002.18) 2018

HOUSEDRESSES, KAFTANS, T-SHIRTS, DU-RAGS, RESIN

72 X 20.25 X 23.5

97

Kevin Beasley

The Acquisition 2018

HOUSEDRESSES, KAFTANS, T-SHIRTS, DU-RAGS, RESIN

72 X 20.25 X 23.5

UNTITLED (LANDSCAPE) 2018

RAW VIRGINIA COTTON, RESIN, KAFTANS, HOUSEDRESSES,

T-SHIRTS, COTTON SHORTS

82.75 X 83.5 X 5.25”

Materiality

98

99


Materiality

100

101

Kevin Beasley

UNTITLED (DIFFUSOR II) 2016

RESIN, ACOUSTIC FOAM, WOOD, HOUSE DRESSES, KAFTANS,

WINTER GLOVE

101 X 76 X 7’’ / 256.5 X 193 X 17.8CM

103

Interview

With

Choi

Jeong

Hwa

Alchemy

by Grace Ignacia See

104

Artist Choi Jeong Hwa’s practice spans just about medium of artistic expression. From

installation, architecture, interior design, furniture design, art direction, the list goes on.

He’s also exhibited internationally at notable art events and locations such as the Sao

Paolo Biennial, Gwangju Biennale, Singapore Biennale, Mori Art Museum in Tokyo and

the Rockbund At Museum in Shanghai. At this current point, you can find his works at

the inaugural Bangkok Biennale, where his brightly stacked found objects constitute

his installations. Well known for large-scale installations that undermine institutional

hierarchy due to their presence outside buildings rather than in them, Choi’s works

consistently evoke the harmony and chaos of urban environments.

Interview

We spoke with Choi about his works, why he chooses the materials he uses, what’s

next for his practice, and his ‘Alchemy’ series.

Grace Ignacia See

We’re very excited to have your Alchemy series on The

Artling. You frequently explore everyday objects in your

works, using them to create these tall structures. Could

you tell us about what motivates you in your practice to

create these sculptures?

Choi Jeong Hwa

It started off with stacking plastic wares. By combining

lightings and kitchen wares, I wanted to make useful

objects using materials everyone is familiar with. Over

the course of 10 years, I built, played, and held workshops

called ‘Gather Together’ which invited the public to participate

in installations. In recent works, I use objects

I’ve collected for 30 years including everyday objects,

domestic wastes, stones, Styrofoam, folk artefacts, furniture,

glass, steel, and started to stack things all over

again.

When you go to the mountains in Korea, you can find

small stupas that native people make. These are stupas

built with time and effort by each person. A stupa is

an altar standing on the ground towards the sky, bearing

phrases of ‘eating well, achieving great wealth and

health’.

All standing things are stupas. A tree is a stupa, and the

man is a stupa. They bear folk religion, shamanism, and

Buddhism. Among these stupas in my exhibition, my

favourite is ‘The Feast of Flowers’ which is made up of

Korean dining tables and rice bowls. In famous Korean

folk religion, there is an altar made of one clean bowl only.

Which every Koren knows about it.

This is the simplest monument, and I believe we can

make our lives rich with only one bowl. When making

‘Dandelion’, we initiated ‘Gather Together’ again. I wished

for participants—who made the works together, contrib-

105

uted materials, and watched us—to be the owners and

the artists of the work. I want to tell them, ‘you are the

monuments’.

GI

Your visual practice interestingly spans installation,

graphic design and architecture. Could you tell us more

about your background in the arts; did you always want

to be an artist?

JH

I never wanted to be an artist. I used to say my job

was ‘Choi Jeong Hwa’ or an ‘intervenor’. Moving across

graphic design, stage design, architecture, installation,

sculpture, etc, I am doing one coherent work which

might be seen as different works depending on the

observer. I’d say I do only one thing— that is to find the

balance of the world!

Choi Jeong Hwa

GI

You’ve been cited as a founding member of contemporary

art movements in Korea. Could you tell us a little

about your journey as an artist? How would you describe

your career as an artist thus far?

JH

What should I call myself… a conceptual artist? No, a

facilitator. I don’t believe art is what someone ‘does’. It is

what ‘becomes’ and is ‘realized’. I think my current career

can be described as raw Kimchi (as opposed to aged and

fermented). I think it will take time to be properly aged. I

think I still need more experience, exercise, and practice.

GI

Your works truly challenge the notion of what art is, and

what can be recognised as art. It falls along the lines of

making ‘found’ objects into art, similar to Duchamp and

his readymades. Could you tell us about this method of

your practice and how you decide what to use?

JH

Perhaps I could say Duchamp is rather ‘cold’ and I’m on

the ‘warm’ side in terms of being a conceptual artist?

I think ‘primitive, shamanic art’ and ‘found objects’ are

the same thing with different names. Are we conceptual

artists for the sake of art? I think it’s rather conceptual

for living itself.

I like to use the term ‘ 生生活活 ‘. In Korean, it means

‘enliven, enliven’: invigorating, cheering the songs

and making you dance. The objects that are found

and encountered (from trash to gold), become the

assembled structure by themselves. This natural state

becomes harmonious; audiences who observe and com-

106

plete the work would take commemorative pictures and

make a forest of tales which in turn gets shared by social

media and becomes a digital forest…making everyone

sing.

GI

You’ve previously mentioned that you like using plastic

due to its lack of deterioration. What is your aim

through the usage of this material? What are you trying

to achieve?

Interview

JH

Undecaying plastic!

Since the 1990’s, I started pondering the question: what

is disposable? Between fresh flowers and artificial flowers,

for example. It’s still an ongoing project.

I think the relationship between the manmade and the

natural is that between the human and nature. Plastic is

made by the sun, the earth, and humans. What humans

make is made by nature. This can also can be seen as a

‘2nd nature’, as plastic is a synthetic compound of rubber

and oil.

Plastic that the sun and the earth make together is the

fossil of the sun. I use plastic as the material under the

project named Anthropocene. By using plastic, I try to

demonstrate the harmonious state between the human

and nature instead of artificial nature. By suggesting a

method of utilization and application of plastic, I assert

to revisit the spirit of plastic, that it’s not something

simply disposable. How can we so easily throw out the

plastic that’s living and thinking?

GI

What three artists do you think the public should always

have their eyes out for?

JH

Brancusi, Bourgeois, Kusama

GI

Could you tell us a little about what you’re working on

now, and perhaps what you have in store for the future?

JH

I will continue the projects ‘Chaosmos’ and ‘Mandala’ in

different media. I will also continue public programs in

different locations. Now, I’m studying infinite and limitless

subjects like the Möbius strip or the Klein bottle.

GI

If you had to give one piece of advice to an artist trying

to make their mark on the art scene, what would it be?

107

JH

The beautiful and the ugly are not two different things

but one. Is it? Continuously question this.

Choi Jeong Hwa

Interview

108

109

Choi Jeong Hwa

Alchemy, 2017

mixed media

Alchemy, 2017

mixed media

Happy Happy, 2009

LACMA, Los Angeles

111

Interview

With

Jeffery

Gibson

working between mediums

by Emily Zimmerman

112

Jeffrey Gibson’s expansive exhibition Like a Hammer offers celebration, nuanced formalism,

and incisive critique in the service of a vision in which indigenous material culture

can occupy the same space as lyrics from a 1960s folk song and abstract painting.

Gibson’s practice crosses over genres and cultural references in a way that echoes a

democratic relationship to community. Originally curated by John Lukavic, Curator of

Native Arts for the Denver Art Museum, Like a Hammer includes sixty-five pieces created

since 2011 that reference the histories of specific cultural artifacts drawing upon

Gibson’s Choctaw and Cherokee heritage and mythologies of pop culture, while at the

same time encouraging a critical approach to the construction of narrative through

museum collections. This confluence of traditions within Gibson’s artwork allows for

the emergence of new readings and invites a set of new methodologies for display.

Interview

Emily Zimmerman

Can we start with the title, Like a Hammer?

Jeffery Gibson

Like a Hammer refers to the Peter, Paul and Mary song

“If I Had a Hammer.” I was born in 1972 and have been

looking back at that period of the civil rights movement

and thinking about these moments in history when

people really believed the future was going to be significantly

different: more ethical, more representative

of contemporary, progressive ideas. I started looking at

the language of different sorts of movements—everything

from punk rock, to Mod culture, to queer culture,

to the feminist movement—and tried to pay attention

to whether this change has happened. What allowed folk

songs to make people feel empowered? Like a Hammer

also couples with different sorts of philosophies about

deconstruction and reconstruction and, in particular, the

hammer as a symbol of change.

EZ

There’s a horizontality in your work that cuts across

media and cultural references. What are the politics of

that horizontal positioning as opposed to a vertical positioning

that reflects a narrow focus on a single medium?

JG

In indirect ways, I’m always looking to metaphorically

describe community, to describe egalitarian politics, and

to disassemble the hierarchy of the mediums. Between

what’s identified as craft and painting, I began thinking

about the craft of painting and began comparing that

to anything—from the craft of weaving to the craft of

beadwork.

When I began working with the punching bags, it was at

a period when I was questioning whether I really wanted

to be an artist. What I came to was that I needed to let go

113

of whether I was an artist or not, and I needed to pursue

the things that I want to see existing in the world that

don’t exist. What are the things that would leverage this

world that didn’t meet my expectations? That’s really

the impetus of where the works and their individuality

come from.

I refer to historical formats, oftentimes. For instance,

the travois that you see when you first walk into the

Seattle Art Museum is a historical format. The only

thing I’ve changed about it is the scale of the trunk—

you would never encounter a rawhide trunk that large

historically. People who are aware of what a travois is in

its historical context would recognize that. And if you

don’t, it could easily be mistaken as just a reproduction

of something from the past. When it was shown there

was a critique written that asked, “How is this different

than what I would find in the Natural History Museum?”

And I thought, really? This was in The New York Times. I

was horrified.

Jeffrey Gibson

At the same time, I thought, this is exactly what needs

to happen. Someone needs to complicate the incredibly

narrow understanding of indigenous aesthetic and

material histories. People are unaware of the depth of

indigenous material cultures, so people may not recognize

the difference. That it’s not actually made for

practical use; it’s made for conceptual purpose. To look

through historical-material culture and realize how rich,

and in many ways how untapped, many things are for

their conceptual purpose in contemporary terms is really

exciting. And that guided the way that I was looking at

collections and personal, familial material culture. Everything

shifted very quickly.

EZ

One of your pieces, American History (JB) (2015), contains

the statement: “American history is longer, larger,

more beautiful and more terrible than anything anyone

has ever said about it.” You’ve said that pieces like American

History are collections in and of themselves. Can you

talk about how a critique of museum collections and the

narratives they present function in your work?

JG

Early in my twenties I worked as a research intern for

three years at the Field Museum in Chicago. People see

my work now and think there is a sense of optimism,

that there’s hope, there’s beauty. I think people mistakenly

think that somehow that means I’m not angry or

frustrated. I experienced intense anger and frustration

in my early twenties. There was literal shock at, “Oh, this

is why people look at me the way they do. Because this

is what they think they know about me.”

114

I could see at that time how debilitating it was for many

Native people to not even be able to be in the museums.

I remember a period when I felt like I couldn’t turn in any

direction and not feel this tremendous anger and frustration.

This was happening at the same time that I was

studying art, theory, criticism, and painting at the Art

Institute of Chicago. So at the same time as being frustrated,

I was being asked to channel that. It was equally

frustrating to be told that I needed to let my anger go in

order to learn how to paint when this was the subject I

was most interested in.

Interview

EZ

Your work mobilizes objects that carry a multi-faceted

history. How did you arrive at the jingle?

JG

I arrived at the jingle initially because of my interest in

powwow culture and the memory of going to powwows

growing up. Within powwow culture you feel a sense of

collectivity and community, but you also get to be an

individual, and you get to see other people expressing

themselves as individuals. It’s a really unique social

space.

I began paying attention to regalia that mixed parts

handed down from previous generations with new

materials that defied what most people would consider

“Native American.” The color palettes included mirrored,

metallic, fluorescent, and iridescent fabrics. The more

eye-catching it was, it seemed like anything, literally anything,

could go. Witnessing these garments freed me and

allowed me to experiment with these materials to find

my own use and visual language with those materials.

When I came across the jingle, I knew that they were

originally the lids of tobacco and snuff containers. I was

always excited by that. I remember thinking this is the

tremendous strength of indigenous people, when something

from outside of the culture comes in, to immediately

transform it, and turn it into something that

supports one’s needs. And that idea, for me, is a traditional

strength of indigenous communities.

Years later, I encountered Oswald de Andrade’s “Anthropophagic

Manifesto,” which was written by a group of

Brazilian artists and poets in 1928. It was completely

about the maintaining of traditional Brazilian culture

through this metaphorical devouring of another culture.

Anthropophagy, referring to cannibalism but in an

artistic sense, is the metaphor for consumption of other

cultures and then turning it back out in support of yourselves.

115

Within the powwow context, the jingle is gendered;

it’s female. You won’t really see men using jingles. For

me to use it as an artist is not to decontextualize it

so much as to expand the context of it. It’s also to

acknowledge that they are now commercially made

specifically for the powwow dancers, which is a niche

market. To me as an artist, this circulation of ideas

into product, into distribution, into a market that is

so specific is completely fascinating. That shifted the

way that I look at every single material: Where did it

come from? Where was it traded from? Where were

those metals coming from? It complicates the idea

of what is perceived of as being traditional.

I give in to the idea that there’s a continuum for what

I’ve chosen to do. The meaning of my artworks will

develop from now and into the future through things

like this interview, through exhibitions, through writing.

I hope people experience my work in a similar way

to when I discovered artworks as a teenager and I felt

like, “Oh, wow. That’s really me, that really represents

me.” That’s the best I can hope for.

EZ

That’s the possibility of exhibition making—world

building. You’re putting forth a different model of how

things might be.

Jeffrey Gibson

JG

I know how much it worked for me growing up. As

a young teenager or even as an elementary school

kid, I remember feeling excited when I would go to

a museum and I saw everything, including Matisse

paintings or Warhol paintings, and thinking, “Oh, that’s

where I need to be. That’s the place where I will be

accepted, that’s the place where I will be heard.” Now

I think that’s what I hope happens when people see a

work or experience an exhibition of mine.

EZ

That is a beautiful, hopeful vision to put forward. And

I think it’s one of the things that the art world can do

if it chooses to.

JG

Totally. I completely agree with that.

Interview

116

117

Jeffrey Gibson

ONE BECOMES THE OTHER, 2015

73 × 16 × 16

Like A Hammer, 2014

56 × 24 × 11

AMERICAN HISTORY (JB), 2015

89 × 66 × 5


Brian Jungen

118

2013

Science Fiction 21: The Last Frontier, Or Gallery,

Vancouver

Sakahàn: International Indigenous Art, National

Gallery of Canada, Ottawa, Canada

2012

Beat Nation: Art, Hip Hop and Aboriginal Culture,

No. 17, Casey Kaplan, New York, USA

dOCUMENTA (13), Kassel, Germany

Untrue North, Yukon Arts Centre, Whitehorse,

Canada

2020

lineages and land bases, Vancouver Art Gallery,

Vancouver

Art for a New Understanding: Native Perspectives,

1950s to Now, Memphis Brooks Museum of Art,

Memphis, USA

Next Year’s Country, Remai Modern, Saskatoon,

Canada

2019

Tell me about yesterday tomorrow, Munich

Documentation Centre for the History of National

Socialism, Munich, Germany

Haunt, in collaboration with Duane Linklater, Institute

of Modern Art, Brisbane, Australia

Plastic Entanglements, Smith College Museum of

Art, Northampton, USA

2018

The Metamorphosis, Vancouver Art Gallery, Vancouver

Beautiful world, where are you?, Liverpool Biennial,

Liverpool, UK

2017

National Gallery of Canada, Ottawa, Canada

2016

On Space and Place: Contemporary Art from

Chicago, Los Angeles, Mexico City, and Vancouver,

De Paul Art Museum, Chicago, USA

Readymades, Gordon Smith Gallery of Canadian

Art, North Vancouver, Canada

MashUp: The Birth of Modern Culture, Vancouver

Art Gallery, Vancouver

Residue: The Persistence of the Real, Vancouver

Art Gallery, Vancouver

The Geometry of Knowing: Part 2, Audain Gallery,

Simon Fraser University, Vancouver

2014

Beat Nation: Art, Hip Hop and Aboriginal Culture,

MacKenzie Art Gallery, Regina; Dalhousie Art Gallery,

Dalhousie University, and St. Mary’s University

Art Gallery, Halifax, Canada

Never Look Back When Leaving, Casey Kaplan, New

York, USA

New Lines: Contemporary Drawings from the

National Gallery of Canada, Art Gallery of Alberta,

Edmonton, Canada

Contemporary Drawings from the National Gallery

of Canada, Mendel Art Gallery, Saskatoon, Canada

2011

Mixed Signals: Artists Consider Masculinity in

Sports, Ezra and Cecile Zilkha Gallery, Wesleyan

University, Middletown, CT, USA

2010Reflection: 15 Years, Casey Kaplan, New York,

USA

Size DOES Matter, The FLAG Art Foundation, New

York, USA

Pattern ID, Akron Art Museum, Akron, USA

Visions of British Columbia: A Landscape Manual,

Vancouver Art Gallery, Vancouver

2009

Mixed Signals: Artists Consider Masculinity in

Sports, The Center for Art, Design and Visual

Martian Museum of Terrestrial Art, Barbican Art

Gallery, London, UK

2007

This Winter, Casey Kaplan, New York, USA

9e Biennale de Lyon, Lyon, France

2005

Material Time/Work Time/Life Time, Reykjavík Arts

Festival, Gerðarsafn - Kópavogur Art Museum,

Kópavogur, Iceland

Short Stories: Contemporary Selections, Henry Art

Gallery, Seattle, USA

Re: Building the World, Edmonton Art Gallery,

Edmonton, Canada

2004

Artists’ Favourites, Institute of Contemporary Arts,

London, UK

A Grain of Dust A Drop of Water, 5th Gwangju

Biennial, Gwangju, South Korea

A Question of Place, Walter Phillips Gallery, Banff

Centre, Banff, Canada

Noah’s Ark, National Gallery of Canada, Ottawa,

Canada

Choi Jeong Hwa

119

2014

Fukuoka Triennale, Fukuoka, Japan

Leeum 10th Aniversary Exhibition ‘ 交感 Beyond

and Between’, Leeum, Seoul

2013

321 Art Community Project, Tainan, Taiwan

Life, Life, Leeahn Gallery, Daegu, Korea

Total Support, Total Museum, Seoul, Korea

Gwangju, Korea

Iro Iro Iro, Kunisaki Art Project, Kunisaki, Japan

2012

Love. Sweet. Life., K11, Hong Kong

Peace of Everyone, the MOTHER of DESIGN,

Marunouchi HOUSE, Tokyo, Japan

Phantoms of Asia, Civic Center Plaza, Asian Art

Museum of San Francisco, San Francisco, USA

Festival of the World, Hayward Gallery, London, UK

2011

Welcome, Ecoland, Jeju, Korea

Revive, Gwangju, Korea

The REDCAT Gala, REDCAT, Los Angeles, USA

Happy Together, Pohang Museum, Pohang, Korea

2010

17th Biennale of Sydney, Sydney, Austria

In the Mood for Love, Aando fine Art, Berlin,

Germany

Art HK 10, Hong Kong

Plastic Garden, Minsheng Art Museum, Shanghai,

China

2009

‘Your Bright Future’, The Museum of Fine Art,

Houston, USA

‘Your Bright Future’, LACMA, Los Angeles, USA

‘Shine a Light’, Korea Culture Center, London, UK

‘O.K!’ Towada Art Center, Towada, Japan

2008

‘Plactic Paradise’, Point Ephemere, Paris, France

New Project, Pekin Fine Arts, Beijing, China

The REDCAT Gala, REDCAT, Los Angeles, USA

2007

Elastic Taboo: Within the Korean World of Contemporary

Art, Kunsthalle Wien, Austria

Truth, REDCAT (Roy and Edna Disney/CalArts Theater),

Los Angeles, USA

2006

Gwangju Biennale-The First Chapter: Trace Root,

Gwangju, Korea

Open-Air Exhibition, Middleheim Museum, Antwerp,

Belgium

Through the Looking Glass, Asian House, London,

UK

2005

Dressing Ourselves, Milan Triennale, Milan, Italy

Secret Beyond the Door, Venice Biennale-Korean

Pavilion, Venice, Italy

CP Biennale, CP Center, Jakarta, Indonesia

Roomscape, Ssamziegil Gallery, Seoul, Korea

2004

Liverpool Biennial, Lime Station, Liverpool, UK

Happy Happy Project, Kirkby Gallery, Liverpool, UK

Public Communications with GASUM, Melbourne

Art Fair, Melbourne, Australia

The Tale of Seoul, Korean Cultural Foundation

Center, Seoul, Korea

2003

Happiness, Mori Art Museum, Tokyo, Japan

Lyon Biennale, Lyon, France

Flower Power, Palais des Beaux-Arts, Lille, France

2002

Happy Together, Kagoshima Open Air Museum,

Kagoshima, Japan

Korean & Japanese Contemporary Prints Exhibition,

Gallery OM, Osaka, Japan

Gwangju Biennale, World Cup Art Soccer Korea

and Japan, Gwanju, Korea

2001

Yokohama Triennale, Yokohama Station, Yokohama,

Japan

Ellen Gallagher

2015

S.M.A.K, The Bottom Line, Ghent, Belgium

Saltwater, 14th Istanbul Biennial, Istanbul, Turkey

56th International Art Exhibition, La Biennale di

Venezia, All the World’s Futures, Venice, Italy

2014

Hauser & Wirth, New Work, London, England

Haus der Kunst, AxME’ Munich, Germany

Studio Museum Harlem, Speaking of People, New

York NY

2013

SCAD Museum of Art, Ice or Salt, New York NY

New Museum, Don’t Axe Me, New York NY

Tate Modern, AxME, London, England

2012

Paris Triennial, Palais de Tokyo, Paris

Printin’, Museum of Modern Art, New York

Print/Out, Museum of Modern Art, New York

2011

Print/Out, Museum of Modern Art, New York

Printin’, Museum of Modern Art, New York

Linde Family Wing for Contemporary Art. Museum

of Fine Arts, Boston

Modern Art, Arnhem, The Netherlands

120

Cleijne + Gallagher, Curry, Höller, Huyghe, Kusama,

Warhol, Wright, Gagosian Gallery, Beverly Hills

Stargazers: Elizabeth Catlett in Conversation with

21 Contemporary Artists. The Bronx Museum of

the Arts, New York

Wunder, Diechtorhallen, Hamburg, Germany

Ellen Gallagher, Gagosian Gallery, New York (West

24th Street)

2010

On Line: Drawing through the Twentieth Century,

Museum of Modern Art, New York

Brune/Blonde, Cinemathèque française, Paris

Afro Modern: Journeys through the Black Atlantic,

Tate Liverpool, UK

Whitney Biennial, Whitney Museum of American

Art, New York

Underwater, Towner, Eastbourne, UK

Contemporary Art from the Collection, Museum

of Modern Art, New York

Take me to your leader!, The National Museum of

Art, Oslo, Norway

2009

An Experiment of Unusual Opportunity, South

London Gallery, London

2007

Ellen Gallagher, Tate Liverpool, United Kingdom

Coral Cities, Tate Liverpool, UK, traveled to Dublin

City Gallery, The Hugh Lane, Ireland

2006

Ellen Gallagher: Salt Eaters, Hauser& Wirth, London

2005

Ellen Gallagher: DeLuxe, the Whitney Museum of

American Art, New York

Ellen Gallagher: Ichthyosaurus, Freud Museum,

London

Ellen Gallagher: Murmur and DeLuxe , The Museum

of Contemporary Art, North Miami, FL

2004

Ellen Gallagher Galerie im Taxispalais, Innsbruck,

Austria

Ellen Gallagher: Orbus, The Fruitmarket Gallery,

Edinburgh, Scotland.

Ellen Gallagher: eXelento, Gagosian Gallery, New

York (Chelsea)

2003

Murmur Galerie Max Hetzler, Berlin

POMP-BANG, Saint Louis Art Museum, MO

2001

Preserve, Des Moines Art Center, IA. Traveled to:

Yerba Buena Center for the Arts, San Francisco;

Drawing Center, New York

Blubber, Gagosian Gallery, New York (Chelsea)

2000

Ellen Gallagher, Anthony d’Offay Gallery, London

1999

Murmer – Drawings from the series Watery Ecstatic;

Murmur - Animation, Galerie Max Hetzler,

Berlin

Ellen Gallagher, Mario Diacono Gallery, Boston, MA

Janine Antoni

2019

Janine Antoni and Anna Halprin: Paper Dance, The

Contemporary, Austin, TX

Janine Antoni: I am fertile ground, Green-Wood

Cemetery Catacombs, Brooklyn, NY

2018

Janine Antoni: Moor and Touch, Accelerator, Stockholm

University, Stockholm, Sweden

2017

Janine Antoni and Stephen Petronio: Entangle,

Frances Young Tang Teaching Museum and Art

Gallery at Skidmore College, Saratoga Springs, NY

2016

Ally, The Fabric Workshop and Museum, Philadelphia,

PA*

Janine Antoni and Stephen Petronio: Honey Baby,

Sheppard Contemporary Art Gallery, University of

Nevada, Reno, Nevada

2015

Incubator: Janine Antoni & Stephen Petronio,

testsite, The Contemporary Austin, a project of

FluentCollaborative, Austin, TX

Janine Antoni: Turn, Anthony Meier Fine Arts, San

Francisco, CA

Janine Antoni: From the Vow Made, Luhring Augustine,

New York, NY

2014

Touch, Magasin 3 Handelshögskolan, Stockholm,

Sweden

2013

Short Notice: Janine Antoni—Touch, Brandts,

Odense, Denmark

2011

Touch, Museum Kunst der Westküste, Alkersum/

Föhr, Germany

2010

At Home in the Body, Fralin Museum of Art at the

University of Virginia, Charlottesville, VA

2009

Up Against, Luhring Augustine, New York, NY

2007

Janine Antoni, Weatherspoon Art Museum, Univer-

121

sity of North Carolina, Greensboro, NC

2006

Lore and Other Convergences, Iniva (Institute of

International Visual Arts), London, England

2005

Ready or Not Here I Come, Iniva (Institute of International

Visual Arts), London, England

2004

Touch, Magasin 3 Stockholm Konsthall, Stockholm,

Sweden

2003

To Draw a Line, Luhring Augustine, New York, NY

2002

taught, tether, teeter, SITE Santa Fe, Santa Fe, NM

Jeffrey Gibson

2016

SITElines.2016: New Perspectives on Art of the

Americas, SITE Santa Fe, New Mexico

NO COMMISSION, Bronx, NY

Recent Acquisition, exhibited as part of Beyond

Limits, Museum of Fine Arts, Boston, MA

March Madness, Fort Gansevoort, New York, New

York

WORD, Hudson Valley Center for Contemporary

Art, Peekskill, New York

New Geometries, Fleisher/Ollman, Philadelphia

Perfect Day, Roberts and Tilton, California

2015

Piece by Piece, Building a Collection, Kemper Museum

of Contemporary Art, Kansas City, Missouri

Gray Would Be The Color if I Had a Heart, MARC

STRAUS, New York, NY

Geometries of Difference: New Approaches to

Ornament and Abstraction, Samuel Dorsky

Museum of Art, New Paltz, New York

2014

Xigue-Xigue, MARC STRAUS, New York, New York

Contemporary American Indian Art, The Nerman

Museum Collection, Overland Park, Kansas

2019

Aftereffect, Museum of Contemporary Art, Denver,

CO

Suffering from Realness, Massachusetts Museum

of Contemporary Art, North Adam, MA

Re:Define, Heard Museum, Phoenix, AR

2018

One Way Or Another, Roberts Project, Culver City,

CA

A Decolonial Atlas: Strategies in Contemporary

Art of The Americas, Tufts University Art Gallery,

Medford, MA

Crystal Bridges, Bentonville, AR (forthcoming)

2017

Monarchs: Brown and Native Contemporary Artists

in the Path of the Butterfly, Bemis Center for

Contemporary Arts, Omaha, NE

Sanctuary, FOR-SITE Foundation, San Francisco,

CA

Opulent Landscapes, DeBuck Gallery, Saint Paul de

Vence, France

Southern Accent: Seeking the American South in

Contemporary Art, Speed Art Museum, Louisville,

KY

From A Whisper To a Scream, Lehmann Maupin,

New York, NY

Desert X Biennial, Palm Desert, CA

A Decolonial Atlas: Strategies In Contemporary Art

Of The Americas, Vincent Price Art Museum, Los

Angeles, CA

2013

Fiction/Non-Fiction, Esker Foundation, Calgary,

Canada

On Deck, MARC STRAUS, New York, New York

Sakahan: International Indigenous Art, National

Gallery Canada, Ottowa, Ontario

Totem, Aysa Geisberg Gallery, New York, New York

Group Show, Samson, Boston, Massachusetts

2012

Shapeshifting, Peabody Essex Museum, Salem,

Massachusetts

2011

Recent Acquisitions, Museum of Fine Arts, Linde

Wing for Contemporary Art, Boston, Massachusetts

Recent Acquisitions, Denver Art Museum, Denver,

Colorado

Drift of Summer, RM Gallery, Auckland, New

Zealand

Observe/Recognize, Berlin Gallery at Legends

Santa Fe, Santa Fe, New Mexico

2010

Collision, Rhode Island School of Design Museum,

Providence, Rhode Island

Alluring Subversions, Timken Art Center, California

College of The Arts, San Diego, California

Currents, University of Northern Colorado, Greeley,

Colorado organized by Cicely Cullen

2009

Signs Taken For Wonders, Jack Shainman Gallery,

New York, New York, organized by

Isolde Brielmaier,

Surveillance, Affirmation Arts, New York, New York,

organized by Rachel Vancellete

Solution, DiverseWorks, Houston, Texas, organized

122

by Janet Phelps

Eiteljorg Museum, Recent Acquisitions, Eiteljorg

2008

Blueballs, Production Fund LAB, New York, New

York, organized by Jackie Saccoccio

Volta 4, Basel, Switzerland, with Samson Projects

2007

SONOTUBE, Santa Barbara Contemporary Arts

Forum, Santa Barbara, California, curated by Miki

Garcia

New England School of Art and Design, Boston,

Massachusetts, organized by Charles Giuliano

Newark Open 2007, Newark, New Jersey, organized

by Omar Lopez-Chahoud

2006

Gallery, Paperworks, Los Angeles, California, curated

by Daria Brit Shapiro

Westport Arts Center, BROOKLYN, Westport, Connecticut,

curated by Amy Simon

2005

Le Désert de Retz, Massimo Audiello, New York,

New York, curated by David Hunt

Alona Kagan Gallery, From the Root to the Fruit,

New York, New York, curated by David Hunt

Evolving Pattern, New Jersey State University,

Jersey City, New Jersey, organized by

Midori Yoshimoto

Play, Iandor Fine Arts, Newark, New Jersey, curated

by Jomo Jelani Heywood

Artists Alliance AIR Exhibition, Cuchifritos Gallery,

New York, New York

2004

The Urge That Binds, Samson Projects, Boston,

Massachusetts

Jersey City Museum, Jersey (New), Jersey City, New

Jersey, curated by Dr. Rocio Aranda

Kevin Beasley

2020

without a clear discernible image, A4 Arts Foundation,

Cape Town, South Africa

Grief and Grievance: Art and Mourning in America,

New Museum, New York, NY

Solidary & Solitary: The Joyner/Giuffrida Collection,

Pérez Art Museum, Miami, FL

Young Gifted and Black, The Lumpkin-Boccuzzi

Family Collection of Contemporary Art,

Lehman College Art Gallery, The Bronx, NY

Psychic Wounds: On Art and Trauma, The Warehouse,

Dallas, TX

2019

Ace: Art on Sports, Promise, and Selfhood, University

Art Museum, University at Albany,

Albany, NY

Frederick Douglass: Embers of Freedom, SCAD

Museum of Art, The Savannah College of

Art and Design, GA

Material Tells, Oakville Galleries, Ontario, Canada

ASSEMBLY (organized by Kevin Beasley, Lumi Tan,

Tim Griffin, and Nicole Kaack),The Kitchen, New

York

World Receivers, The Zabludowicz Collection,

London

Solidary And Solitary: The Pamela J. Joyner And

Alfred J. Giuffrida Collection, Smart

Museum of Art, University of Chicago, Chicago, IL

2018

A view of a landscape, Whitney Museum of American

Art, New York, NY

Kevin Beasley, The Institute of Contemporary Art,

Boston, MA


Alfred J. Giuffrida Collection, Snite

Museum of Art, University of Notre Dame, Notre

Dame, IN

Nothing Stable Under Heaven, SFMoMA, San

Francisco, CA


Alfred J. Giuffrida Collection, Nasher

Museum of Art at Duke University, Durham, NC


Alfred J. Giuffrida Collection, Ogden

Museum of Southern Art, New Orleans, LA

2017


Alfred J. Giuffrida Collection, Ogden

Museum of Southern Art, New Orleans, LA

That I am readings backwards and into for a purpose,

to go on:, curated by The

Whitney Museum of American Art Independent

Study Program, The Kitchen,

New York, NY

Touchpiece, Hannah Hoffman Gallery, Los Angeles,

CA

2016

A Slow Succession with Many Interruptions,

SFMoMA, San Francisco, CA

The Beat Goes On, curated by Derrick Adams, SVA

Chelsea Gallery, New York, NY

Blackness in Abstraction, curated by Adrienne

Edwards, Pace Gallery, New York, NY

Imitation of Life: Melodrama and Race in the 21st

Century, HOME, Manchester

*Between the Ticks of the Watch, The Renaissance

Society at the University of

Chicago, Chicago, IL

Surrogates, Griffin Art Projects, Vancouver, British

Columbia

A Moment of Grace, Modern Art Oxford, Oxford

A Shape That Stands Up, The Hammer Museum at

Art + Practice, Los Angeles, CA

Winter 2015: Collected Works, Rennie Museum,

Vancouver, British Columbia

123

Looking Back / The 10th White Columns Annual,

Selected by Matthew Higgs, White

Columns, New York, NY

2015

Many things brought from one climate to another,

Art Gallery of Ontario, Ontario, Toronto

Greater New York, MOMA PS1, Long Island City, NY

Breath/Breadth: Contemporary American Black

Male Identity, Maier Museum of Art

at Randolph College, Lynchburg, VA

*Storylines: Contemporary Art at the Guggenheim,

Solomon R. Guggenheim

Museum, New York, NY

(MoNA), Pontiac, MI

Kevin Beasley and Vanessa Merrill, MoNA, Pontiac,

MI

:Wellness: Film premier, Cave, Detroit, MI

Change: Its all There Already, University of Michigan

art gallery, Detroit, MI

2008

This and There, Somewhere, Forum Gallery, Cranbrook

Academy of Art, Bloomfield Hills, MI

Andres Serrano Picks Detroit, Center Galleries,

College for Creative Studies, Detroit, MI

Detroit-Toledo Exhibition, Secor Gallery/Detroit

Industrial Projects, Toledo, OH

2014

The Global Africa Project-Political Patterns, Seoul

Museum of Art, Seoul

Cut to Swipe, The Museum of Modern Art, New

York, NY

Rockaway! PS1 MOMA, Rockaway Beach, New

York, NY

Material Histories, The Studio Museum in Harlem,

NY

*When the Stars Begin to Fall: Imagination and the

American South, The Studio Museum in

Harlem, NY; NSU Museum of Art, Fort Lauderdale,

FL; Institute of Contemporary Art,

Boston, MA

The 2014 Whitney Biennial, Whitney Museum of

American Art, New York, NY

Harold Ancart, Kevin Beasley, Mateo López, Casey

Kaplan, New York, NY

2013

Queens International 2013, Queen Museum of Art,

New York, NY

Realization is Better Than Anticipation, Museum of

Contemporary Art, Cleveland, OH

6<<<>>> Part I, Interstate Projects, Brooklyn, NY

2012

Fore, The Studio Museum in Harlem, Harlem, NY

Some Sweet Day, Museum of Modern Art, New

York, NY

Thesis Part Two, Yale University Art Gallery, New

Haven, CT

An All Day Event, The End, Danspace, New York, NY

2011

PULSE Contemporary Art Fair Los Angeles, The

Butcher’s Daughter, Los Angeles, CA

Live from Detroit, Fred Torres Collaborations, New

York, NY

New Departures and Transitions, N’Namdi Center

for Contemporary Art, Detroit, MI

College Art Association New York Area MFA Exhibition,

Hunter College, New York, NY

2010

Paycheck to Paycheck, The Butcher’s Daughter,

Ferndale, MI

2009

Shameless Nameless Recycled, POP gallery Los

Angeles, CA

Detroit: Breeding Ground, Museum of New Art


Brian Jungen

Owl Drugs, 2016.


64.1 × 57.2 × 53.3 cm

Installation view, 2019

Art gallery of ontario, toronto

This Will Be Not Alright, 2016.


64.1 × 57.2 × 53.3 cm

Understand The Light In All Directions, 2018


64.1 × 57.2 × 53.3 cm

Americas Most Wanted #1, 2016


HORSE MASK (CHER), 2016


64.1 × 57.2 × 53.3 cm

Choi Jeong Hwa

Alchemy, 2018

mixed media

225 x 70 x 70 cm

88 9/16 x 27 9/16 x 27 9/16 inches

Alchemy, 2017

Mixed media

170 x 30 x 30 cm

66 15/16 x 11 13/16 x 11 13/16 inches

Hubble Bubble, 2010

Installation at the Fondazione MAXXI in Rome

Alchemy, 2018

Mixed media

83 9/10 × 11 4/5 × 11 4/5 in

213 × 30 × 30 cm

Alchemy, 2018

Mixed media

80 3/10 × 11 4/5 × 11 4/5 in

204 × 30 × 30 cm

Alchemy, 2018

Mixed media

107 1/2 × 10 3/5 × 10 3/5 in

273 × 27 × 27 cm

Alchemy, 2018

Mixed media

81 1/2 × 11 4/5 × 11 4/5 in

207 × 30 × 30 cm

Presence of Eternity (Ikuisuuden läsnäolo),

2013-2014

Kiasma Museum of Contemporary Art

124

Ellen Gallagher

Wiglette from DeLuxe, 2004

photogravure and plasticine,

33 x 26.6 cm each, 13 x 10 1/2 in. each

Deluxe, 2004-5

acrylic, plasticine, photogravure, googly eyes on

paper collage on paper, 13 x 10 in

Deluxe, 2004-5

60 works on paper, etching, screenprint, lithograph

with plasticine, velvet, toy eyeballs and coconut oil

2149 × 4527 mm

Installation view, DeLuxe, 2004-2005

created in HWVR by ArtLab. Courtesy of the artists

and Hauser & Wirth Zürich / London / Los Angeles /

New York / Somerset / Menorca.

Deluxe, 2004-5



2149 × 4527 mm

Deluxe, 2004-5



2149 × 4527 mm

Installtion view, 2004-5

Gagosian-Paris, Courtesy the artist and Gagosian

La Chinoise, 2008

Pencil, ink, oil, watercolour and cut paper on paper

Various size

Janine Antoni

Gnaw, 1992

600 lb chocolate cube and 600 lb lard cube

gnawed by the artist

Installation dimensions: variable

Lick and Lather, 1993

Seven licked chocolate self-portrait busts and

seven washed soap self-portrait busts on fourteen

pedestals

Bust: 24 x 16 x 13 inches (each, approximately)

Pedestal: 45 7/8 x 16 inches


Eureka, 1993

Bathtub, lard, soap, and Dorian

Soap: 22 x 26 x 26 inches

Bathtub: 30 x 70 x 25 inches


Photographed by Jodi Nieva at Fundació “la Caixa,”

Barcelona

Saddle, 2000

Full rawhide

27 x 32 x 79 inches

Jeffery Gibson

125

182.9 × 51.4 × 59.7 cm

Like A Hammer, 2014

wool, wood, deer rawhide, glass beads, steel studs,

copper jingles, acrylic yarn, quartz crystals, brass

bells, Angora goat fur, artificial sinew

H=84 1/8”, W=26 7/8”, D= 13 7/8”

Come Alive! (I Feel Love), 2016

acrylic felt, rawhide, wood, glass beads, stone

arrowheads, steel wire, assorted beads, tin and

copper jingles, artificial sinew, acrylic paint, druzy

quartz crystal, steel and brass studs

66.25” X 28” X 15”

Installtion view, 2015

New York, NY, MARC STRAUS

Courtesy the artist

One Becomes the Other, 2015

found punching bag, glass and plastic beads, steel

studs, nylon fringe, copper cones, nylon fringe,

artificial sinew, quartz crystals, acrylic paint

73 x 14 x 14 inches

The Acquisition, 2018

Resin, housedresses, kaftans, du-rags, t-shirts,

CD’s, guinea fowl feathers, clothes pins, hair rollers,

hair extensions (tumbleweave), fake gold dookie

chain

96 × 83 × 10 1/2 in

Untitled (Landscape), 2018

82.75 X 83.5 X 5.25” House dresses, kaftans,

t-shirts, socks, du-rags, cotton, soil, bandanas,

altered garments, altered fitted caps, resin

78 3/4 × 80 × 3 in

Installtion view , A view of a landscape: A cotton

gin motor, 2012–2018

Untitled (Diffusor II), 2016

Resin, acoustic foam, wood, house dresses, kaftans,

winter glove

101 X 76 X 7’’

I Put A Spell On You, 2015

Re-purposed punching bag, glass beads, artificial

sinew, and steel

40 x 14 x 14 inches

All For One, One For All, 2015

driftwood, hardware, wool, canvas, glass beads,

artificial sinew, metal jingles, nylon fringe, ribbon,

steel studs, high fire glazed ceramics

60” x 72” x 74”

Speak To Me In Your Way So That I Can Hear You,

2015

driftwood, hardware, wool. canvas, glass beads,

artificial sinew, metal jingles, nylon fringe, acrylic,

high fire glazed ceramic

112” x 53” x 72.5”

Kevin Beasley

Slab XIII (alternate view), 2019

Polyurethane resin, raw Virginia cotton, altered

housedress, altered kaftans, altered t-shirts, stainless

steel fasteners

64.1 × 57.2 × 53.3 cm

Slab VII, 2019


housedress, altered kaftans, altered t-shirts, stainless

steel fasteners

242.6 × 194.3 × 11.4 cm

Slab VIII, 2019


housedress, altered kaftans, altered t-shirts, nylon

fasteners

242.6 × 109.9 × 11.4 cm

Untitled (Standing Block 002.18), 2018

Housedresses, kaftans, t-shirts, du-rags, resin

Published on the occasion of the

exhibition What You See, Unseen,

curated by Summer Ahn and organized

by Hauser & Wirth.

Hauser & Wirth,

901 East 3rd Street

Los Angeles CA 90013

18 July – 15 August 2020

First Edition@ Hauser & Wirth

All rights reserved. No part of this

publication may be produced, stored

in a retrieval system or transmitted,

in any form, by all means, electronic,

mechanical, photocopying, recording

or otherwise, without the prior

permission of Hauser & Wirth publishing.

Designer | Summer Ahn

Instructor | Stephen Serrato

Course | Type 4: Editorial Print

ArtCenter College of Design

Typefaces | Kumlien Pro, Degular

127


Materiality

128

129


Materiality

130

What You See, Unseen

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