Graham Collins and Jennie Jieun Lee Exhibition
Marlborough Chelsea
This event has ended.
I know almost nothing about art. But one thing that – it seems to me anyway – Jennie’s work and Graham’s work have in common is that you can see the process of its creation in the final product, the traces of all the materials and labor that went into making it: whether the warps and waves of porcelain or plops of glass or the fingers in the twisting clay torsos of tall vases shaking their glazed bellies, the drips and crackles across the faces of her masks, or the de- and re- and un- construction of his objects, in which one can always see what destroyed or rescued things they are made of and what has been done –the pool turned on its side and swathed in paint to become a monumental sculpture that is still a pool, you could flip it back over and swim in it, or slices of old paintings that become new paintings, or a matchbook that becomes a brass sculpture then is burnt again. Nothing is hidden. Nothing lies. Nothing tries to hide the fact that somebody made it out of something else.
Maybe that is the process that all of these materials go through: from raw materials – earth, water, glass, wood, metal, paint – to crafted materials undergoing the labor of human hands on their way to becoming artifacts, made things that might have a role, a use – bowls, vases, wood chips, pork rinds, matches, barns, pictures of people and places – and then, finally, turning into things that exist just for themselves, that are useless but alive, just like us: works of art.
That’s what I mean to say: The structure is completely exposed and the entire process is present in the finished thing, if finished is even the right word. Are we finished? Not while we are still alive. And that is what I always imagine works of art aspire to be: living things, independent objects that live their own lives, among us, but not necessarily for us, nor for their makers. They carry on without us. (This is the sense in which an artwork can be finished, I guess. Complete. It is ready to go out on its own.) Like knowing someone else is at home even when you can’t see or hear them makes the house feel different, even if they are asleep, even if it is just a cat asleep, or a plant invisibly growing. They change the atmosphere. This is how I feel about art or even books. They are sitting there on the shelf like loaded objects, awaiting their chance to act. Or sleeping there, dreaming as we look at them. Or maybe looking back at us while we work or sleep.
Media
Schedule
from June 23, 2016 to July 29, 2016
Opening Reception on 2016-06-23 from 18:00 to 20:00