„Kiss the day goodbye“ by Charles Atlas at i8 gallery

„Kiss the day goodbye“ by Charles Atlas at i8 gallery

„Kiss the day goodbye“ by Charles Atlas at i8 gallery

As the sun disappears from the sky in Iceland, it seems fitting that i8 Gallery should choose an exhibition of this kind to end the year and take us into the new decade. Charles Atlas’s 2015 video installation Kiss the Day Goodbye displays a romanticized vision of the sun, the sea and the sublime. Ironically as I see my own connection with the sun has become that of a long-distance relationship; there is an inherent sentimentality which runs through the video and audio work on display. Concerning the idea of a sun and the memory of how it feels and how these allusions, these false suns, is all that we have left as we move deeper into the winter months. 

This video piece differs from many of Atlas’ existing works due to its absence of a performative human body. Its subject instead being that of Florida, the Sunshine State, alongside the Gulf of Mexico which makes up the majority of this American peninsula’s border. It is clear that the sea, sky and sun not only are features that fully encompass the most southerly region of the country but is likewise reverently reflected by Atlas’ use of these three core elements. Arguably it is the latter of these elements, the Sun, which commands the space of the exhibition. It becomes a character in its own right, one which wears many masks and outfits. Not only being cast as an entity of warmth and light. At times it flashes subversive moments of dark coolness through its deep hues paired with the looming twilight skies which surround this figure. The sunset, which signifies the end of our days and the start of our nights, controlling the flow and structure of society since the dawn of time and man, is replicated here 24 times all of which at differing heights and times. A reliable symbol of consistency, Atlas portrays its inconsistency. The work plays with a heliocentric perspective. Snippets of earthly presences, which include kites and birds, flit across sections of the screen to disappear at the border. Shadows would similarly be cast across the wall of the exhibition as car headlights from outside illuminate passing figures who disappear just as suddenly. Nevertheless, nothing seems to compete with the intimidating monument of our star.

The horizon has disintegrated. The limit of the seen world from a given point becomes a void at the end of an ocean. The grid which contains these suns, and numerous seas, similarly have a fracturing effect. Atlas’ implementation of a grid structure as a key motif within the exhibition introduces the audience to his focused portrayal of nature. The black space becoming segmented and numbered as if it were a loading screen counting us down. There are several moments of order which then gradually transition into a patchwork environment as even the grid itself is not bound to an eternal pattern. Instead, these digital edges mimic the border of two domains, cropped images emulating the natural world while also constructing vertical horizons as well. These apparent lines touch and stretch themselves into the other. Shifting and sliding. I cannot help but notice how this movement imitates that of window blinds that reveal and conceal my view of the world and the larger outside. As conversations surrounding borders intensify, especially in the United States, it is refreshing to be confronted by a world where boundaries move and adapt to the surrounding environment. Nothing is set or determined within Atlas’ perspective as edges are no longer defined limits. Sky and sea become fluid as if they are dancing, a give and take which shares the screen. Speaking of the screen, the installation is not even limited to a single wall and instead wraps itself around the corner of the space, extending into multidimensionality which wraps and consumes the viewer.

Charles Atlas
Kiss the Day Goodbye, 2015 (installation view)
two-channel video installation with sound
© Charles Atlas; Courtesy of the artist, Luhring Augustine, New York and i8 Gallery, Reykjavik. 

 Charles Atlas
Kiss the Day Goodbye, 2015 (installation view)
two-channel video installation with sound
© Charles Atlas; Courtesy of the artist, Luhring Augustine, New York and i8 Gallery, Reykjavik.

This world of edges, oceans, and endless skylines is filled by a soundscape that evokes a sense of tradition and nostalgia. The audio of a bagpipe playing closes, or maybe opens, the scene like the cockerel cries to the sun as it rises. It’s arguably one of the most recognizable instruments in the western world due to its powerful droning notes that makes an impactful impression within the small space of i8; even masking the passing traffic at times. This instrument alludes to moments of celebration. Often used as a ceremonial element of funerals around the world as this Celtic instrument migrated with its players. In a way, we are asked to attend the funeral of the sun and day as it is buried beneath the waves. Furthering this idea that we, the human race perhaps, are running out of time and an end is approaching. Pondering on how we approach these finalities, considering our innate fear of mortality. Additionally, Atlas has chosen to complement this archaic instrument with a synth soundscape reminiscent of an 80s crime thriller. These minimalist waves of sound become the voice of the scene steadily pulsing its energy into the room. Steady like the setting sun with bursts of industrial squeaks and echoes. Even within this natural landscape the presence of human activity inserts itself. This space is inherently human-made.

It is hard not to consider time while viewing the work in the dark and enclosed gallery space. Evoking ideas of both cosmic and anthropological time. How our perception of these vast planetary movements is almost impossible to register. The digital format and editing of the video allow us to acknowledge our minuscule presence. Our relationship between planetary entities and the human attraction to these distant orbital monoliths. Time and space are used to give ourselves structure and stabilize our position in a universe. There is a balance to it all; fitting since astrologically my sun is a Libra. Important to note is how this presentation of Atlas’ work differs from previous incarnations. Being previously shown in the 2017 Venice Biennale within a larger video/audio installation by Atlas. This included an adjacent digital clock that ran down from 18 minutes, the time it takes the sun to set. I am glad that this countdown clock is absent here. Time resides within ambiguity in this darkened space, a bubble universe where the sun constantly sets. This apocalyptic notion of the end is still present yet less overt, instead of relying on implication and atmosphere. I find there is a hope for a new day as the video resets and the countdown begins again. 

The separation of sky and land has fascinated mankind for centuries. The distinction between the heavens and the human world. The mystery of what lies beyond, the intrigue of the unknown. I am intrigued too. I find it ironic that Atlas has, either intentionally or unintentionally, embodied the mythological role of his titanic namesake. A being, who, as the myth goes, was condemned to support the heavens on his shoulders and therefore separate the sky and land for eternity. A responsibility that appears to show signs of degrading and neglect in this shifting exhibition.

George Cox

 

The exhibition Kiss the Day Goodbye by Charles Atlas runs at i8 Gallery until February the 1st, 2020. 

https://i8.is/exhibitions/173/press_release_text/

 

Cover picture:  

Charles Atlas
Kiss the Day Goodbye, 2015 (installation view)
two-channel video installation with sound
© Charles Atlas; Courtesy of the artist, Luhring Augustine, New York and i8 Gallery, Reykjavik.

A Mirrored Detritus and the Camouflaged Body : B. Ingrid Olson at i8 Gallery

A Mirrored Detritus and the Camouflaged Body : B. Ingrid Olson at i8 Gallery

A Mirrored Detritus and the Camouflaged Body : B. Ingrid Olson at i8 Gallery

I8 recently added B. Ingrid Olson (b.1987) to their roster of represented artists, a Chicago based artist whose intriguing practice can be placed somewhat ambiguously along an undefined axis of photography and sculpture. Olson´s exhibition at i8, Fingered Eyed, her first solo exhibition in Iceland, is compelling in its refined execution. Each of Olson´s pieces are intricately woven in a subtly connected thematic, bordering a limbo between a raw sterility that is contrasted by the warm, fleshy presence of the human body. Fingered Eyed is stark and directed, with a unique precision of vision that is wholly satisfying. 

This exhibition works with an open and permeable vocabulary of sculpture, photography, a theatrical staging, and a focused detail on physical material. As Olson essentializes, a “bodily image contained by spatial cavities, or concavities.” At first glance, her sculptural photographs suggest something like papier mache, digitally distorted after the fact, the compositions so complex and confused. In fact, the meticulous moments are staged by the hand of the artist, captured at the blink of an eye, or rather at the close of a camera shutter. Crafted with a precise calculation, each photograph contains a different aim, a different intuition of gesture as she expands and contracts the body and its mirrored proximities.

Installation view Fingered Eyed at i8 Gallery.

Olson unpacks the process for me: “the work that appears to be primarily sculptural comes out of a series of forms that are actually designed to create images by way of light and shadow cast over the protruding edges and inward curving surfaces. Overhead lighting works on their structure to relay a shadow-image of a minimal, absent body. Though these works are not at all photographic technically, their relationship to light (both artificial and natural sunlight) does function as a parallel metaphor for photography, which at its root is described as ‘drawing with light’. And conversely, the works that can be easily referred to as photographic are also equally sculptural in their activity, structure, and presence. The pictures capture performative sculpting of the body and space, with handmade props or found objects that work to camouflage or conflate the figure with its surrounding space. The printed images are then again bridged into the sculptural by way of their deep Plexiglas frames that extend far into their frontal airspace, forming a simultaneous barrier and open container.”

These photographic objects (plexiglass, dye sublimation print on aluminum, MDF) extend out from the wall, surgical yellow, pasty tones interrupting the sterile gallery space. She calls these three works ‘blinders’, working with an analogous relationship to interior architectural space. “The deep sides become wall-like, in that they cordon off the recessed image from full view when approached from an oblique angle. They put limitations on the completeness of vision and dictate how much and when the framed image can possibly be seen. The frames work to orient the viewer towards full-frontal, conscious looking.” It is only when we come to face the object that we encounter the work within. Because of their physical walls, we cannot fully experience the sculptural forms unless facing them head on, entering them, almost. It is in this that Olson allows us to be alone with the piece, carving out a space from which a work and an experience emerges from within the depths of an empty wall. An object, out of moment, for us to privately revel in.

Installation view Fingered Eyed at i8 Gallery.

The body is present throughout. Olson hides her face, but it is present. As she explains, “the body as ‘malleable construction’ has givens, but they can be adapted, changed, and altered. I think this quality of the lived-body is related to lived-architecture, in that there is the initial design of the space, versus the eventual built building that succumbs to time and changing circumstances. Bodies and buildings both need consistent upkeep and adaptation in order to fill certain changing roles, or needs. There is the given nature of things in the beginningand then there is manipulated, altered, embodied experience.”

A finger over the lens. Mirrors smudged by bodily interaction. An oddly covered female crotch. Smaller sculptures dispersed along the floor and walls reference to knees, holes, body rolls, hips. A loose sculptural representation of an eye, also just barely noticeable in a photograph, imprints of kneeling, a place where two feet might once have stood. The gallery space is physically marked and molded by the body, the image taking a tactile form. 

Each photograph, sculpture, and malleable form informs the other, Olson explains, in their difference in speed. “Images work with immediacy, quickly on the eye, whereas sculptural objects are much slower. The photographic images have a sense of simultaneous time inherent to them, inviting a mental jump to a past time and place. The sculptures are (questionably) ever-present, existing as objects to be encountered by the body, in the here-and-now. It is my hope that the sculptural will slow the photographic, and the photographic pieces will prod the sculptural components, causing them to shiver a bit.”

In the smaller sculpture works, the corporeal nature of craftlike fabrics, the delicateness of the cloth, for example, draws out a physical moment from the image. One sculpture is made out of light reflective paper, which she uses in her images as well to create shapes and distortion over her body. The photographic method is then brought out into an embodied form, into physical space, for us to engage and respond to.

When I ask B Ingrid from where she draws artistic influence, she tells me that she tries to “spend time with and approach things or ideas that I strongly dislike. Repulsion or anger is the opposite of attraction and affinity, so it only seems natural to try to find a point of entry into the uncomfortable or the unwanted so they can inform their opposites in some way, or at the very least so they create some itchiness by way of their difference.” And in fact, the harshness of this reflective paper, harnessing a sterile and extreme light, invokes a very specific and familiar feeling in the viewer. It is an uneasy feeling, an itchiness even, and we don’t quite know why. A prosthetic, surgical quality, invokes the naked, gritty, harsh lights of a hospital. Uncomfortably sickly tones and artificial body parts create a corporal form out of something mechanical. A shrine of the body, mixing physical and artificial, plastic and organic, natural and constructed. In this uneasiness we become distinctly aware of our own bodies, whether they are not quite surely still whole, amidst this chopping of others.

Installation view Fingered Eyed at i8 Gallery.

In closing, I notice that a quarter of sales from an offset print in the exhibition will be donated to the American Civil Liberties Union and to Stígamót Education and Counseling Center for Survivors of Sexual Abuse and Violence in Iceland. Perhaps this is part of the derived implication, in Olson’s focus on the body and the unwanted, that our bodies are threatened, of not being sacred, ravaged, torn apart, manipulated. An extra layer for private reflection is unveiled, a space for us to consider a safe place for our bodies, where we revel in their beauty, uninterrupted. 

Olson’s aim from this exhibition? Put simply, “to slow an image down, to create, in its ideal outcome, an image that will contain multiple readings, or entry pointsto make an image that will only reveal itself fully over a longer period of time.” And successfully achieved, in intriguing fashion.

 

Daría Sól Andrews


Fingered Eyed is on view at i8 Gallery until August 10th, 2019.

Cover photo: B. Ingrid Olson, Eye, Camera, Body, Room, (Horizontal), 2019.

Photo credits: Vigfús Birgirsson

Photographs courtesy of i8 Gallery.

Artist’s website: http://bingridolson.com 

i8 Gallery: https://i8.is  

Úthugsuð merkingarleysa

Úthugsuð merkingarleysa

Úthugsuð merkingarleysa

Það var með mikilli eftirvæntingu að ég steig inn í gallerí i8 á dögunum til að berja nýjustu afurð Ragnars Kjartanssonar augum. Verk sem unnið er fyrir nýbyggingu Kaupmannahafnarháskóla, Maersk turninn, sem hýsir heilbrigðisvísindasvið skólans. Verkið nefnist Fígúrur í landslagi, eins konar óður til klassíska málverksins. Við fyrstu sýn virðist verkið einmitt vera lifandi málverk og vegna skorts á líkingu sem hefur jafn breiða skírskotun: líkt og málverk úr sögunum um galdrastrákinn Harry Potter.

Líkingin er þó heldur ódýr þar sem verkið spannar í heild 168 klukkustundir sem kann að þykja handahófskennd tala en er í raun slétt vika. Ég vil eyða sem fæstum orðum í lýsingu á verkinu, en í skólanum er það sýnt á skjá í anddyri byggingarinnar, í lyftum sem og í skjávörpum í skólastofum þegar þeir eru ekki í notkun vegna kennslu. Verkið endurtekur sig því með vikumillibili. Það sem fyrir augu ber eru einfaldlega fígúrur í læknasloppum sem settar eru inn í leikmynd í formi landslags, rómantísk leiktjöld og leikmunir í formi grjóts og blóma. Hver dagur hefur þannig sína leikmynd og þegar nýr dagur hefst á miðnætti hefst nýr dagur í nýju landslagi innan verksins.

RAGNAR KJARTANSSON
Fígúrur í landslagi (fimmtudagur), 2018

vídeó, 24 klst.
Verkið Fígúrur í landslagi var gert að undirlagi Mannvirkja- og eignasviðs danska ríkisins fyrir heilbrigðissvið Kaupmannahafnarháskóla.
Birt með leyfi listamannsins, Luhring Augustine, New York & i8 gallerís, Reykavík.

Fyrir þá sem hafa kynnt sér verk Ragnars minna Fígúrur í landslagi um margt á eldri verk frá ferli listamannsins. Helst eru það rómantísku leiktjöldin sem maður kannast við úr eldri verkum, t.a.m. minnir Miðvikudagur um mjög á verkið Heimsljós – líf og dauði listamanns, en gestir yfirlitssýningar Ragnars sem haldin var í Hafnarhúsi árið 2017 ættu að vera því verki góðu kunnir. Skali þessa tveggja verka er auk þess óneitanlega sambærilegur. Það er að minnsta kosti á færi fárra að komast í gegnum þessi tvö verk í heild sinni. En það leiðir svo aftur að spurningunni um hvort maður þurfi í raun og veru að innbyrða hverja einustu sekúndu verks á borð við Fígúrur í landslagi. Nær maður til dæmis einhvern tímann að fullskoða málverk?

Uppsetning verksins í sýningarsal i8 er með ögn öðru sniði. Í rýminu eru sjö skjáir svo hver vikudagur fær þannig sinn eigin skjá og rúllar því hver dagur við hlið þess næsta samtímis. Í glugga gallerísins er svo áttunda verkinu varpað, hinu viku langa heildarverki, jafnt dag sem nótt. Með því að sýna hvern dag fyrir sig á sínum eigin skjá verður til hálfgert kraðak í annars stílhreinum sýningarsalnum. Þetta þýða verk með sína hægu framvindu verður því að hálfgerðu áreiti, enda eru augun þannig innréttuð að við leitumst við að elta uppi hreyfingar og maður kemst þar af leiðandi ekki hjá því að hlaupa með augunum frá einum skjás til annars. Svo því sé annars haldið til haga þá eru þetta átta verk í heildina. Hver dagur er eitt verk og heildin er hið áttunda.


RAGNAR KJARTANSSON
Fígúrur í landslagi (miðvikudagur), (fimmtudagur) og (föstudagur), 2018

vídeó, 24 klst.
Verkið Fígúrur í landslagi var gert að undirlagi Mannvirkja- og eignasviðs danska ríkisins fyrir heilbrigðissvið Kaupmannahafnarháskóla.
Birt með leyfi listamannsins, Luhring Augustine, New York & i8 gallerís, Reykavík.

Eins og áður hefur komið fram er verkið t.a.m. sýnt sem skjávari (e. screensaver) í skólastofum sem og í lyftum skólabyggingarinnar. Fyrirbærin skjávarar og lyftutónlist eru án efa einhverjar þekktustu birtingarmyndir klisja. Ég vil síst af öllu ýja að því að verk Ragnars séu orðin að klisju, en er það ekki einmitt samnefnari listaverka sem standa upp úr í listasögunni að þau hafa verið gerð að klisjum með aðstoð varnings sem hægt er að kaupa í safnbúðum, hvort sem það sé í formi lyklakippa, póstkorta, ísskápssegla eða strandhandklæða?

Það sem kannski skilur Fígúrur í landslagi frá klisjunni er sú staðreynd að verkið staðnar ekki. Það er jú lifandi málverk. Það er nánast lögmál að alltaf mun eitthvað verða eftir fyrir nemendur Kaupmannahafnarháskóla að sjá. Vissulega munu nemendur ekki geta varist því að sjá suma búta aftur og aftur, viku eftir viku. Verkið hefur enda virkni álíka klukku sem bókstaflega fylgir stundatöflu nemenda.

En hvað er listamaðurinn að segja okkur? Listfræðingar, jafnt sem listfræðinemar, verða sífellt fyrir barðinu á spurningum er varða merkingu hinna ýmissa listaverka. Það er jú vel þekkt að listamenn komi einhverjum skilaboðum áleiðis í verkum sínum, að verk séu merkingarþrungin, að í þeim megi finna gagnrýni á núverandi stjórnkerfi eða pólitíkusa, áminning um eyðileggingu náttúrunnar eða heróp femínískra listamanna gegn feðraveldinu, svo dæmi séu tekin. Sjálfur þykist Ragnar eiginlega ekkert vita hvert hann sé að fara með þessu verki svo vitnað sé í nýlegt útvarpsviðtal við hann í Víðsjá Ríkisútvarpsins.[1]

Það er ekkert nýtt að Ragnar láti sig merkingu listaverka sinna litlu varða. Í sýningarskrá sem gefin var út samhliða sýningu hans, The End, á Feneyjartvíæringnum 2009 birtust tölvupóstsamskipti Ragnars og Andjeas Ejiksson. Þar kemst Ragnar m.a. svo að orði: „Ég umfaðma merkingarleysi verka minna vegna þess að ég held að í því felist kjarni sannleika míns.“[2]

Það er staðföst skoðun mín að almenn hylli verka Ragnars megi að einhverju leyti rekja til þessa meinta merkingarleysis. Það gerir áhorfendanum kleift að nálgast verkin án þess að vera þjakaður þeirri pressu að þurfa að ráða í merkingu verksins. Ekki nóg með það að áhorfandinn getur notið verksins án þess að skilja það, þá tel ég að með því að leysa áhorfendann undan viðjum pressunnar til að finna merkingu verksins verður merkingarleysið að einskonar efnahvata. Með öðrum orðum, hugmyndaflug áhorfandans nýtur góðs af því að þurfa ekki að glíma við að ráða í dulmálið.

RAGNAR KJARTANSSON
Fígúrur í landslagi (sunnudagur), 2018

vídeó, 24 klst.
Verkið Fígúrur í landslagi var gert að undirlagi Mannvirkja- og eignasviðs danska ríkisins fyrir heilbrigðissvið Kaupmannahafnarháskóla.
Birt með leyfi listamannsins, Luhring Augustine, New York & i8 gallerís, Reykavík.

Þannig tekst Ragnari meðvitað eða ómeðvitað í sífellu að tala inn í samtímann í verkum sínum. Fólk fær að sjá, eða öllu heldur hugsa það sem það vill. Þannig getur verkið Fígúrur í landslagi til dæmis auðveldlega orðið áminning um þá miklu vá sem steðjar að náttúrunni. Ekki það að okkur birtist einhver heimsendaspá í verkinu. Læknarnir sem eigra um rómantískt landslagið gera það einkar hversdagslega. Þeir eru hvorki á þönum við að bjarga því né heldur virka þeir á nokkurn hátt líkt og vísindamenn sem að eru að krukka í því, að beisla það, mannkyninu til hagsbóta og náttúrunni til óbóta. Læknarnir einfaldlega eru. Hvort sem landslagið er grýtt strönd, frumskógur, snævi þakið fjalllendi, eða eyðimörk þá þurfa fígúrurnar ekkert að aðlagast, hvert landslag út af fyrir sig virkar eins og þeirra náttúrlega umhverfi (e. habitat).

RAGNAR KJARTANSSON
Fígúrur í landslagi (laugardagur) og (sunnudagur), 2018

vídeó, 24 klst.
Verkið Fígúrur í landslagi var gert að undirlagi Mannvirkja- og eignasviðs danska ríkisins fyrir heilbrigðissvið Kaupmannahafnarháskóla.
Birt með leyfi listamannsins, Luhring Augustine, New York & i8 gallerís, Reykavík.

Fyrir einhverja kosmíska tilviljun hefur það líka gerst að hér er sett upp sýning á verki sem pantað var af opinberri stofnun í Kaupmannahöfn á sama tíma og hér á Íslandi á sér stað frumskógarheit umræða um opinber listaverk. Mér þykir leitt að þurfa að draga pálmatrén í fyrirhugaðri Vogabyggð enn og aftur inn í umræðuna, en mér finnst þessi kaldhæðni alheimsins svo ótrúleg og þar að auki rímar hún líka þægilega við stóran hluta ferils Ragnars. Á sama tíma og fréttir eru fluttar af tómum Listskreytingasjóði, hvers allt fjármagn fer í að halda innantóma kaffifundi til þess eins að komast að þeirri niðurstöðu að hafna þurfu öllum umsóknum til sjóðsins vegna fjárskorts[3], þá getum við að minnsta kosti gengið að þessu tímamótaverki Ragnars um stundar sakir, þökk sé frændum okkar, Dönum.

Grétar Þór Sigurðsson


[1] http://www.ruv.is/frett/hviti-sloppurinn-er-geggjad-takn

[2] The End, Ragnar Kjartansson (2009)

[3] http://www.ruv.is/frett/styrktarsjodur-sem-getur-ekki-veitt-styrki

A Triangle Dreaming of a Triangle – an Interview with Ignacio Uriarte

A Triangle Dreaming of a Triangle – an Interview with Ignacio Uriarte

A Triangle Dreaming of a Triangle – an Interview with Ignacio Uriarte

In Ignacio Uriarte’s exhibition, Divisions and Reflections, now on view at i8 gallery until August 4th, the black and white drawings create a suite of connective material, like the tissues of the same organic world of shapes. Uriarte is known for his background in business administration which he has carried into his artistic career by using the same tools of the trade – those belonging to the office. However, in this office space, the traditional ways of looking at the use of objects are given a new formula that explodes the mundane aspect of the work to touch on the body-machine relationship where tools are extensions of bodily functions still restricted yet extended. In an interview, the artist spoke about the way narrative is written into signs and symbols in a way in which the signs and symbols can be nostalgic and even dream of themselves.

Erin: Your background in business administration has really been the focus of a lot of the writing I have read about your work. I watched one of your earlier works in which an actor performed the sounds of a typewriter. It really gave these tools an embodied aspect, like a Cronenberg effect. It seems like a similar effect goes into your drawings by making a caricature of the body as a tool.

Ignacio: The typewriter is a writing instrument but it is almost played like a keyboard with the sounds of a percussion instrument. It used to be the soundtrack of the office and was used in movies when you wanted to announce that someone is entering the pressroom or the office. The typewriter just belongs there, but it’s a bit of a pity because the typewriter really inherits that world wherever it goes. I wanted to do homage to the sound qualities of the typewriter without showing a typewriter.

I recorded in a technology museum where they have thousands of typewriters and every couple of years they have a different model, electrical ones or ones with digital memories with each typewriter having a different sound. The actor is basically listening to the original sounds and recreating them with his mouth. The History of the Typewriter Recited by Michael Winslow (2009) is the name of the piece. The work had so many reactions with people from the art world reacting in a certain way, typewriter fetishists reacting in a certain way, and beatboxers reacting in another way. It was so funny to have all these reactions.

Erin: That’s the magic of how a simple thing put into a new context can have a different meaning for so many people. Off the top of my head, Naked Lunch is my first typewriter association.

Ignacio: Yes, a typewriter turned into a living being. I think a lot about Cronenberg [David Cronenberg, the director of the film Naked Lunch based on the novel by William S. Burroughs] in my work in general and the interactions between man and machine. Often, with him, it’s the physical connection of man to a machine.

Erin: There is a really strong connection when you think of office work and this constraint put on the body, as in the typewriter; the act is so physical.

Ignacio: I find with the typewriter that there is another aspect of the way we become digital. For the people who grew up with pre-digital technology, the typewriter has given us quite a lot of help. You have the idea of the function of a paper where you can copy things and take them out again. These physical things were taken from the computer screen.

Throughout the filming, I came up with these very constructed drawings that often take a letter or a sign like in concrete poetry where they take a word or a concept that is a visual image but is also a visual result. So I started moving in that direction of taking a sign and seeing what sign is makes in space. Now, I do a lot of drawings in that manner. Sometimes it becomes way more organic than you would expect from an instrument. I make curvy lines by slowly rotating the paper and it gives you images you wouldn’t expect from a typewriter.

Erin: It really brings together the notions of art and poetry and art and writing. I was thinking a lot of the Oulipo (Ouvroir de littérature potentielle, or workshop of potential literature) movement in the 1960s in France, a group of writers who put these constraints in their writing to make it sort of mechanical, similar to how you work within the constraint of using office supplies. These writers would create a boundary for themselves from which to write so that the whole meaning of what was within these boundaries could be expanded: writing poems using only one vowel, for example.

Ignacio: For me, the use of office material was a way to stay rooted in reality. I tend to go for these images that are rather universal, minimal, or abstract. When you restrict yourself to certain tools, as well as methods, it is not the typical gestural painting of beauty out of intuition, but more about someone adjusting and obeying an everyday life situation.

Erin: It seems that this exhibition is more of an organic geometric world with these kinds of shapes, much more so than your previous works.

Ignacio: It is very new for me to move into the shape to begin with. This is the second show in which I’m influenced by geometry. You can see the influence of these Swiss designers, like Max Bill. First of all, it is a very reduced language; Bauhaus didn’t invent it. The Catholic Church began it. We’ve been doing this for a long time – when you want to find a universal symbol you tend to reduce it. I remember being taught in a Montessori Kindergarten in which kids are taught to read with symbols, so the verb is a red circle, as it is a movement that’s jumping around, and the article is a triangle, as it is set in place. In a way, I’m using what the Bauhaus educational system used. It’s appealing because I’m still bringing the empty container in which everyone can bring his or her own whatever-is-in-their-mind. It is a very playful way to explain the world and there is some optimism. I think the show even looks a little bit nostalgic of the 1960s.

This one, in particular, Ten Documents (2018), with the op-art effect may remind you of when people were using drugs in the 1960s, like the doors of perception. The work is actually about the size of the DIN system. In Europe, the sizes are designed by German engineers in which DA 0 is exactly one square meter and if you divide it by half, which is half the space, then it is DA 1, DA 2, DA 3, and so on and if you turn it around it is exactly the same orientation. There is a lot of method involved. It was invented for the First World War and for a really big war you had a lot of office administration. So for this square, if you calculate it, you can easily think that if you need this many pieces of paper, you know you will need this many pieces. Many things were invented for war purposes that had a very positive use in society and they usually put a lot of research into it. The thing is, you don’t think of war as being in the office. So, although the work has this op-art effect depending on the perspective, I call it Ten Documents to bring it back to reality.

And with this one, Eight Circles Forming a Square (2018), it is rectangular and I tried to make a square with eight circles by playing with halves. The end result is these overlays, typical things you use to explore shapes.

The whole show was made with the same pen. There is something about transparency and overlap in Four Rotating Squares (2018), the way the more you overlap the darker you get. There is a kind of summing up of surfaces in the way that this is a circle trying to become a square and this is four squares becoming a circle. It is a very simple gesture in which you have these shapes and then you have this effect. It is so simple and universal, this shape; it is like a sun freeing the shape of the sun. There is always a bit of transformation happening – a triangle dreaming of a triangle.

Erin: Creating triangles with triangles sounds like a format for concrete poetry. It almost seems like a formula in which you can only use the thing you are creating to create the thing you are creating, almost like a mise en abyme event.

Ignacio: This triangle also relates to the square. It’s very constructed. That’s why, to me, the exhibition space is a choreographed space. They are part of the same fabric – a suite of works that talk to each other.

Erin: Has anyone commented on the overt hairiness of these strokes?

Ignacio: In other pieces, people say they look like sweaters. One idea with the strokes is their relation to chance more than to scribbling. It has this very chaotic, organic, physical, almost biological feel to them. The making of these strokes is so anthropomorphic, as well. The repetition and the natural movement reflect the size and radius of your wrist. This work is called Chiasmus (2018), like the narrative structure used in literature. It could be representative of this narrative structure in which the second part is mirrored against the first part but with a role reversal.

In these works (Two Quarters, Four Eights, and Eight Sixteenths (2018)) you can see this Cronenbergian worm that is being divided. The space each shape needs is compacted. Because I left the same procedure for each one, the paper is what gives it shape, but it is almost like the space has to give it shape. I am not trying to distract from it. You’re getting into the consequences of a system that works very well on the viewer and the reader and then suddenly your personal story becomes extremely universal of that consequence. The question in any art form is: What do you want? Do you want an artwork or do you want to live in an artwork? Do you want to distract or, through it, understand reality better or do you want to come to a realisation of something?

Erin: With these questions in mind we thank Ignacio.

Erin Honeycut


Photo credit: Featured image by Marcel Schwickerath. Images of works: Vigfús Birgisson.

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