Mechanisms @ The Wattis Institute

Trisha Donnelly

Untitled, 2014-2017

Projection

Dimensions Variable

Opposing ends of the corridor

The drop-ceiling

 

Either side of a common wall

Trisha Donnelly

Untitled, 2014-2017

Projection

Dimensions Variable

Either I am completely confused or something interesting was happening between adjoining spaces with Trisha Donnelly's work in this exhibition. Having seen Donnelly use space and its lighting in the past (see here) in opposition as well as sculpting with both projector and architecture, it leaves me thinking that whether or not my observations are true in this instance, they should be; and they should be confused, which I think is to the point of the work, especially in terms of subtlety and nuance within spatial passages (literally) and time (more or less psychologically). Which is which? Inside or out? Dark or light? Or somewhere in between...? And, so it is within such thinking that I viewed her works then and now AND also this group show at large, a show titled "Mechanisms."  Donnelly's works seemed more key than the Posenesnke frontispieces that seems to index the show by location and concept, at least overtly. Again, subsequent transitional/amorophous spaces set up by Donnelly's seem more to an elusive point about this exhibition about systems and machines, ones that are perceived and yet not perceived.

Jacob Kassay

Untitled, 2016

Immiscible acrylic on canvas

93.1 x 43.32 x 2 inches

Jacob Kassay

Untitled, 2016

Immiscible acrylic on canvas

94.96 x 60.02 x 2 inches

Like Donnelly's, Kassay's works also double in two ways, redundant to be sure (and to even say), points to static and dynamic states (works that look like puzzle pieces, themselves like states of a scattered union).  One can't also help but think about the flutter of human perception, the primary built-in viewing machines called eyes, especially as one considers the looping film below.

Jacob Kassay

II, 2017

16mm film

TRT: 24 minutes

Aaron Flint Jamison

Greaser, 2015

Vibrator and purple heart

139.5 x 30.68 x 5 inches

It's Base, 2015

Casters and purple heart

6.75 x 30.75 x 28.5 inches

Purple heart, both common element and military referent, can not be overlooked nor overheard as this work both looked and sounded like something. It's wood grains, like waves, also vibrated thereby emitting abstract sounds, as all good wood would.

Harun Farocki

Deep Play, 2007

12-channel installation

TRT: 2 hr 15 minute loop

Less certain of Farocki's aesthetics, the point made by this video installation that so many layers of mediation accompany any single event or series of events within a set time (the duration of a soccer match in this instance), leaves us still, funnily enough, needing more information rather than less to complete the "picture" at least experientially/holistically AND that no single point of view/moment contains the accurate reception of the event in the same way that Cubism is both celebrated and failed by similar principles/desires regarding simultaneity.  The parallel technologies within human experience are seductive at best as physical analog examples (film and the mass-prolrfereation of printed matter) are replaced by a digital corollary of each.  It was fun to watch for the whole family, and that has to count  for something.

Charlotte Posenenske

Series D Vierkantrohre (Square Tubes), 1967

Sheet steel and screws; 9 elements chosen from a system of 6 pieces

Dimensions Varaible

Somewhat of a seemingly obligatory and obvious indexical point comes with the inclusion of these works by Posenenske.  One must think about the internal workings of architecture, the 20th century readymade as sculpture (mechanical achievement and beauty), and a kind of obsolescence that comes with such cultural/artistic references and artifacts, mechanisms to be sure.   For these works and certainly any considered in this show which rely on newish delivery systems of information, also to include ones filled with hot air literally/figuratively,  I suppose by such thought, I include myself and my own complicity in such mechanistic matters.  

Whatever the case, it was worth thinking about these conditions, somewhere between here and there, 1967 and 2017.  Whether more elusive with Donnelly or Jamison or more straightforward with Kassay, Farocki and Posenenske (try to say that ten times fast),  it was also worth thinking about mechanisms that play literally, figuratively, socially, politically et al within such times.