A Timely Glimpse of that Elusive Other
It's hard to make work about something that doesn't exist.
This dilemma is an old one for artists - being at the being at the forefront of change, constantly bringing to light concepts which exist at the fringe of human understanding. The entire concept of the Avant-Garde is founded around that - and even conservative echelons of the art world has an element of 'frontier' to it. It must - encounters with the unknown are an inherent part of artistic practice.
In this sense, Subject 23's exhibition A Timely Glimpse of that Elusive Other is only exceptional in that it is no exception. Taking the elusive nature of water as its starting point, the exhibition explores ambiguity across many realms - of nature, spirituality, and the object's relationship with the body. This is best exemplified by the sculpture Chaos, a semi-functioning 'skipper' water sprinkler that distributes seemingly at random throughout one of the rooms of the exhibition. The randomness of the skipper - engineered by the artist to be sporadic rather than following a specific pattern - renders viewing a truly chaotic and hazardous event, and contrasts with the fluid, transforming nature of the water itself. The artist has placed a denial of liability sign at the entrance, in case personal goods are damaged by water. The paintings, meanwhile, are covered by a protective plastic film - disconnecting the viewer from the work - though the artist expects them to deteriorate over the course of the exhibition.
The theme of The Unknown is elaborated upon in the works on the walls surrounding Chaos. Can we ever part? is an almost abstract expressionist painting that perfectly represents the swirling mists of Casper David Friedrich, offering us a first person view from the perspective of the protagonist of Wanderer above a sea of fog (1818). The swirls have been meticulously reconstructed by the artist as through from the Wanderer's point of view, putting us in the viewing position of the Wanderer facing the unknown - at once confused and predicting triumph. There is a marked difference between 23's project and Friedrich's - whereas the latter marks the creation of a particular subjectivity through its relationship with the unknown, here the subject is the self in a context of uncertainty which comes to stand for the whole. The exploration of cultural traditions - a hallmark of some of the other works - point to a different kind of frontier of the unknown, one where the artist journeys beyond known styles - perhaps in a colonial fashion - to encounter 'the other' through navigating its cultural symbols.
The uncertainty of Can we ever part? extends to objects, and Subject 23's speculation around the physical existence of objects makes up a majority of the second room of Hacky Gallery's 'Twin' space. The room acts as a kind of test-site for materiality, where objects are probed for their reality-creating abilities. In contrast with the sprinkler, whose materiality is connected with its functionality and harnessing of nature, here the objects are more benign and questionable: a clay blob is packed with content and left to set, or an object poses as a meteor that hit the United States in 1943. In each case, the object calls into question its own materiality, and therefore our relationship with it (as non-material, or semi-material beings).
Initially the most confusing work here is Empty Vessel - at first glance a simple empty ceramic bowl. By itself, such a work would be relatively meaningless, a simple co-option of so-called primitive or
early art. But in the context of the exhibition, it comments on the lasting nature of the discourse at hand, suggesting that the examination of reality via its materiality is inherent to artistic practice. Herein lies the core of Subject 23's argument in A Timely Glimpse of that Elusive Other: that the creation of material realities, whilst bound up in their symbolic function, is inherent to the creation of the subject itself. 'Content' plays a particular role here - a phenomenological speculation on whether the human being exists as a pre-determined and de facto entity, or simply a by-product of material conditions. What becomes of the human being disconnected, therefore, from an environment? Something less natural, or more essentially human? Is the subject no less than different combinations of content, and what happens when this content is removed? The impossibility of this speculation - requiring as it does a subject position essentially outside the subject which it is examining, makes it a rich site for artistic investigation, fully exploited by Subject 23 here.
A Timely Glimpse of that Elusive Other
Subject 23
@ Hacky Gallery, Tossin
This dilemma is an old one for artists - being at the being at the forefront of change, constantly bringing to light concepts which exist at the fringe of human understanding. The entire concept of the Avant-Garde is founded around that - and even conservative echelons of the art world has an element of 'frontier' to it. It must - encounters with the unknown are an inherent part of artistic practice.
In this sense, Subject 23's exhibition A Timely Glimpse of that Elusive Other is only exceptional in that it is no exception. Taking the elusive nature of water as its starting point, the exhibition explores ambiguity across many realms - of nature, spirituality, and the object's relationship with the body. This is best exemplified by the sculpture Chaos, a semi-functioning 'skipper' water sprinkler that distributes seemingly at random throughout one of the rooms of the exhibition. The randomness of the skipper - engineered by the artist to be sporadic rather than following a specific pattern - renders viewing a truly chaotic and hazardous event, and contrasts with the fluid, transforming nature of the water itself. The artist has placed a denial of liability sign at the entrance, in case personal goods are damaged by water. The paintings, meanwhile, are covered by a protective plastic film - disconnecting the viewer from the work - though the artist expects them to deteriorate over the course of the exhibition.
Empty Vessel
The theme of The Unknown is elaborated upon in the works on the walls surrounding Chaos. Can we ever part? is an almost abstract expressionist painting that perfectly represents the swirling mists of Casper David Friedrich, offering us a first person view from the perspective of the protagonist of Wanderer above a sea of fog (1818). The swirls have been meticulously reconstructed by the artist as through from the Wanderer's point of view, putting us in the viewing position of the Wanderer facing the unknown - at once confused and predicting triumph. There is a marked difference between 23's project and Friedrich's - whereas the latter marks the creation of a particular subjectivity through its relationship with the unknown, here the subject is the self in a context of uncertainty which comes to stand for the whole. The exploration of cultural traditions - a hallmark of some of the other works - point to a different kind of frontier of the unknown, one where the artist journeys beyond known styles - perhaps in a colonial fashion - to encounter 'the other' through navigating its cultural symbols.
The uncertainty of Can we ever part? extends to objects, and Subject 23's speculation around the physical existence of objects makes up a majority of the second room of Hacky Gallery's 'Twin' space. The room acts as a kind of test-site for materiality, where objects are probed for their reality-creating abilities. In contrast with the sprinkler, whose materiality is connected with its functionality and harnessing of nature, here the objects are more benign and questionable: a clay blob is packed with content and left to set, or an object poses as a meteor that hit the United States in 1943. In each case, the object calls into question its own materiality, and therefore our relationship with it (as non-material, or semi-material beings).
Initially the most confusing work here is Empty Vessel - at first glance a simple empty ceramic bowl. By itself, such a work would be relatively meaningless, a simple co-option of so-called primitive or
early art. But in the context of the exhibition, it comments on the lasting nature of the discourse at hand, suggesting that the examination of reality via its materiality is inherent to artistic practice. Herein lies the core of Subject 23's argument in A Timely Glimpse of that Elusive Other: that the creation of material realities, whilst bound up in their symbolic function, is inherent to the creation of the subject itself. 'Content' plays a particular role here - a phenomenological speculation on whether the human being exists as a pre-determined and de facto entity, or simply a by-product of material conditions. What becomes of the human being disconnected, therefore, from an environment? Something less natural, or more essentially human? Is the subject no less than different combinations of content, and what happens when this content is removed? The impossibility of this speculation - requiring as it does a subject position essentially outside the subject which it is examining, makes it a rich site for artistic investigation, fully exploited by Subject 23 here.
A Timely Glimpse of that Elusive Other
Subject 23
@ Hacky Gallery, Tossin
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