JUL. 09 - SEPT. 12, 2021 - LINES
OPENING
July 9, 2021, 6-9pm
DURATION
July 9 - September 12, 2021
GROUP SHOW
Claire Ashley, Daniel Garver, Allyson Packer, Benjamin Peterson, jeffrey teuton and Jennifer Vasher
ABOUT
Linear Logic Problems, or the Deformation of Irrational Curves
by Liz Trosper
birds + Richard is proud to present a group exhibition called LINES featuring the work of Claire Ashley, Daniel Garver, Allyson Packer, Benjamin Peterson, jeffrey teuton and Jennifer Vasher.
Deformation. Irrational. Curves. I wonder if these terms will be accepted in relation to the premise of a show called LINES? I remember -- some time before I quit a traditional drawing and painting education -- hearing the old adage “There are no lines in nature.” I guess that depends on what you consider a line and how you conceive of nature.
What’s the most abstract way to think about a line? y=Mx+b?
Of course, this is not the most abstract line. It is, however, related to my favorite abstraction from Pythagoras -- a2+b2=c2 -- standing in for every conceivable instantiation of a right triangle.
Or maybe you could think of Plato’s analogy of the divided line?
On that line, we have: imagination < belief < thought and < understanding.
Understanding reigns in the hierarchy and imagination sits at the lowly bottom. So it is with math. I remember hearing during my first year as a teacher that imaginary numbers should be renamed. For this faculty member, calling numbers imaginary was insulting and not apt to their exalted status within mathematical logic.
Where we come into trouble are with the complexities of line. Math’s linearity can’t handle the true nature of a line. It’s too rigid. That’s where we find the labels “deformation” and “irrational” within lines, and it’s no wonder we begin to realize the extreme misogyny coded into the linear logic problems of mathematics. What other problems arise for you when you attempt to conceive of LINES?
Of course, there are lines in nature. Maybe you could think of the tracks that constitute our circulatory system? I see these lines in Claire Ashley’s and Daniel Garver’s work. The never-ending mobius strip that takes us around in Claire Ashley’s engagement with Lygia Clark’s work, CAMINHANDO reminds us that lines need not be based on ideas of linear progress nor need they be hierarchical in nature. This point is driven farther by resisting typical artwork hierarchies in favor of engagement and education as creative practice -- a radical act of empathy after the educational crisis of the past year.
Benjamin Peterson’s work speaks to the power that enmeshed lines have to create space. This includes the lateral abstraction of time in tracking social abstractions like the stock market or progress within a Google map. These mesh networks have become our visual culture as we conceptualize the spread of a virus. Peterson, however, undermines the fear of others inherent in this visual culture by engaging friends in the execution of his work, much like the line drawings of Sol LeWitt.
Think of your own blue blood vessels when you consider Daniel Garver’s ceramic vessels. The deceptively Pythagorean-shaped objects by Garver evoke the writings of Michel Serres in his chapter of Malfeasance titled “Urine, Manure, Blood, Sperm.” Serres writes “We have all inhabited the matrix, the first place, for nine months;” From vessels, we emerge and drink. What we drink becomes what circulates within us.
Both Garver and Peterson think of lines as edges. As an edge, a line joins and separates, and it’s a slippery distinction between a line and a plane, such as the edges in the sculptures both artists make. This brings me to the ideas in Jennifer Vasher’s Medicine Cabinet, which draws attention to the way multinational pharma crosses the lines of both our bodies and borders.
It also occurs to me that internationality -- the reassertion, transcendence and diminishment of the effectiveness of maintaining borders is of foremost concern in Allyson Packer’s work. -- based on her use of international signals. The lines that form the images of her work are the physical prompt to a vast mesh of communication lines -- those of message senders and receivers in times of isolation. One must also mention mental health and reflectivity in the poetics of Packer’s frustrated communications.
Deformation and irrationality have come to be a norm for those of us continuing to live and breathe and watching affairs of the last year. At the time of this writing, our notions of ourselves have been wracked by the struggles of relationships with others and with self. These themes emerge in jeffrey teuton’s You, me, and the line that shouldn't be crossed, under the big blue sky. One need only recall the lines representing climbing rates -- of deaths, isolation, mental illness, mass shootings. The line between living and dead. The straight line of the needle tapping into the curvilinear network of the circulatory system.
PRESS CONTACT
For more information and for high resolution images, please contact the gallery at abq@birds-richard.xyz.