Transplant: Sept 15, 2012

Angelika floated the idea of having an end of the Summer get together which would also entail asking some artists to create or install works in and around the garden - as we did for our Kamp Maykr shindig in 2008.   

I had this in mind while on Norton Island in July and wanted to recreate the island's buoy trail - a path around the island marked by buoys -  in our yard.  The notion of transpositioning, transplanting seemed a suitable loosely applied theme around which the works could be organized.  What more better or more obvious strategy for an exhibit in a garden?  But transposition and transplantation of ideas, of environmental details, and the disjunction of placement, in general, can be immediately pleasing.  Not to mention the broader allusion that most of us of an art persuasion in this communities are ourselves transplants.

The notion of transposition or transplantation was galvanized after a visit to my pal's place in Brooklyn. [story ensues...]  The men's room Beacon's now closed Piggy Bank sported an alluring...and one (I) might say refreshingly invigorating photo of a chorus line of nude 20's era females.  This photo was a refreshing perk to visiting the WC.   Doug, the owner, told us that a mother had demanded he remove the photo after her young son used the facility...and was undoubtedly scarred by it.  So, my Brooklyn pal, after seeing the photo in the Piggy Bank's men's room on a visit to Beacon several years ago, ordered a copy of it for his own bathroom -which is where it has stayed, until this Summer when I decided to repatriate the image to Beacon.  The Piggy Bank now being closed, I decided to repatriate this sliver of Beacon's visual heritage - to my own bathroom.

So a bit of  Beacon's Piggy Bank was transplanted, via Brooklyn, for the gathering.  By a stroke of visual fortuitousness, I installed the photo very close to the already hanging dog and donkey piece by James Westwater.  There's a crazy synergy chromatic and figurative synergy between the two pieces.

Here are some views of the garden with works by Eleanor White, Karlos Carcamo, Jill Reynolds, Kirsten Kucer, Sara Mussen, Peter Iannarelli, Michael Koch, Susan Walsh, Rene Kildow, Angelika and myself.

 

Peter Iannarelli, Untitled, zip ties

Karlos Carcamo, Untitled (hand cuffs, cast cement

A future archeologist might take castings to track the habits of a society in conflict - or are these urban fossils?

Karlos Carcamo, Untitled (knife), cast cement

Eleanor White, Untitled, synthetic hair (blonde and curly)

The photo above by Angelika shows Eleanor's piece shortly after installation.  The images below show the work in the following days.

 

Kirsten Kucer  Forest Air, glass vessel, transported air.

Our neighbor Michael  Koch played with transplanting words in a prase

This drawing found by Michael outside of the new Dim Sum place on Main St was a ready companion for any lonely folks who needed one.

Susan Walsh, Overheard, twine, plastic bags

 The speckling of black scales on the fence interacted nicely with the arabesques of the thread.

Jill Reynolds, Catenary, twine

photo by Angelika

 Jill said to think of this piece as a spider meeting Fred Sandback...maybe a bit of Johns too.

Angelika Rinnhofer, Untitled, video

 Viewable through the window, a slice of Times Square relocated right into the shed. 

Sara Mussen, Untitled, wood, rawhide lace.

Sara Mussen's untitled pirate ship of a sculpture can portend a global scale of transplantation, and she herself is the ultimate embodiment of transplant, having, just over a month ago, donated a portion of her liver to her infant nephew.  In direct sunlight, her surgery scar vibrated with the fuscia of her blouse.

Sara's scar, photo by Angelika.

a work contributed anonymously, obviously transplanted from the tree to the ground.

The following images are of the various things I fiddled with.

Platform, wood, derelict fountain

I utilized a few pieces originally created as part of my ]twenty-six paces[ project for last year's Windows on Main St.  Above, two mobiles consisting of latex pant "oven mitts", and below, one of an edition of wooden sculptural replicas of the rigs I used to locate the anchor points of the great Main St "spanning" string.

 

Points, 2011, wood.

The constraints of time prevented me from recreating the bouy trail as I had wanted.  Instead, I settled for a last minute de-contextualized display of paper mache buoys. 

Buoys, paper-mache, cardboard

A few of Norton Island's trail marking buoys.

Half Breed, paper, wood, three legged carrot

Finally, on the morning of the shindig, I picked a prodigious carrot which spawned a vision in my head....Such is the bounty of nature.