Andrew Witkin “that dear old picture on the wall”

Theodore:Art

This event has ended.

Andrew Witkin, with assistance, collaboration, guidance, influence and other forms of interaction from a large assortment of people, has created an installation that ponders the concept of clarity. Using massive quantities of information as both visual and conceptual subject matter, Witkin presents an installation of custom woven fabrics, newspaper clippings and photography, among other materials and processes.

A heightened attention to framing (both physical ‘fine art’ frames and the framing of ‘vignettes’ in the space) guides a viewer’s experiences. Architectural interventions add layers of visibility yet challenge paths of motion. The interventions (‘walls’, of a sort) also serve as supports for framed, stacked and folded objects. Hanging on these newly built ‘walls’ are frames dense with collections of formally related newspaper clippings that both obfuscate data and illuminate patterns. Taken together, the elements and scenarios are as much a question of how to read and feel about contemporary life as they are about formal issues of exhibition-, image-, object- and place- making. Where is the place for wistfulness and sentimentality? Can one be emotional and calculated? If something is dense can it also be welcoming? The project balances between specificity and generality, choice and chance, casualness and skill, and information and intuition.

Andrew Witkin’s exhibitions have happened at the Currier Museum of Art, DeCordova Sculpture Park and Museum, Institute of Contemporary Art, Boston, Museum of Fine Arts, Boston, University of New Hampshire Museum of Art, as well as at galleries such as Allston Skirt Gallery, Boston, Theodore:Art, New York and James Harris Gallery, Seattle. Works are in the collections of the DeCordova Sculpture Park and Museum, Henry Art Gallery, Seattle, Institute of Contemporary Art, Boston, Museum of Fine Arts, Boston, Museum of Fine Arts, Houston, and the University of New Hampshire Museum of Art. He has executed site-responsive works in locations as diverse as Big Bend National Park, Texas, Damascus, Syria, Naples, Italy, and a long-term project is in the works in northern New Hampshire.