Katie Murken “Fight Well Against the Future”
The Form Review is a simple attempt to increase dialogue within art journalism and highlight the subjectivity of a traditional exhibition review. Artists/curators/responsible parties of an exhibition are invited to respond to five short prompts. In turn, a representative of the St.Claire views the exhibition and independently responds to the same five prompts. Both sets of “form answers” are published in tandem on the St.Claire website. To participate drop us a line at hark@the-st-claire.com
(IMAGE:Courtesy of the artist)
Responses by Katie Murken, artist
1. What is hidden in this exhibition? What is in plain sight?
Hidden in this exhibition is the essence that lies just out of reach in most of our modern human dealings. The rare encounter that elicits and reveals a sense of wonder at the world.
In plain sight are the vestiges of this encounter. Glimmers of a meeting between past, present and future versions of ourselves depicted as shells and surfaces.
2. Who would be this exhibition’s parents? What might it’s children look like?
The origins of this work in my juvenilia became apparent to me only in retrospect. Its parents are a stellated dodecahedron I created from paper in my high school art class and a series of drawings of motorcycles completed for my first college drawing studio.
The dodecahedron was the crowning work of an early foray into the geometry of form and its application to the construction of objects. I was excited to experiment with the construction of something according to a pattern, one that was ancient yet ubiquitous. M.C. Escher was a major influence at the time.
One of my first college drawing assignments was a series of eight drawings, variable in media and scale, that explore a unified theme. I wanted to draw motorcycles because they seemed cool and complex. In the process of following the forms and structures that the way that human engineering betrays an obsession with style, and that style betrays all that is valued by a particular culture at a particular moment in time.
Its child…. An editioned artist book dealing with similar themes, but in a sequential, hand-held format. The book format presents the opportunity to “animate” the arrival and departure of the cars to/from the scene of the spectacle. A device that would allow me to single out an individual car – the one that stays, waits and watches for the actual experience that occurs beyond the momentary event.
3. Describe one moment in this exhibition.
This exhibition depicts only a single moment. It is the moment between an arrival and a departure where there is a lag that is so uncomfortable we have designed our lives in order to avoid prolonging its duration.
4. This exhibition answers the following question:
How does where we have been influence where we are and where we are going?
5. You should message this exhibition if…
You’re looking for the magic.
Responses by Matt Kalasky, Editor The St.Claire
1. What is hidden in this exhibition? What is in plain sight?
In these works the apocalypse is hidden. The deluge of fire and brimstone has passed. The last stock exchange spasmed still. What is plain sight–what we are left to consider–is that which we will never see. The after end. But who gives a fuck? What is there to care about after We/Me are no more? How could there even be more?
2. Who would be this exhibition’s parents? What might it’s children look like?
The parents are History. There are no more children. The future is a forever now.
3. Describe one moment in this exhibition.
In Man in the Autumn Light a shin deep puddle is all that remains of movement and life. It persist in a catacomb (perhaps a void?) where everything is dead and there is nothing left to nurture.
4. This exhibition answers the following question:
Did we put up a fight?
5. You should message this exhibition if…
In ruin everything is equal.
…
“Fight Well Against the Future”
Works by Katie Murken
ON VIEW:
September 6 – September 28, 2013
Space 1026
1026 Arch St
Philadelphia, PA 19107
space1026.com