between two deaths: 2009

Sunday, April 19, 2009

CNDYMN

Mirror, Dry transfer type
9 x 7 inches

The eponymous curse/urban legend from Clive Barker’s film, Candyman, (look into a mirror and say his name five times) alpha-numerically etched onto a mirror.

*All photo credits: Brynne Kennedy

Title

Acetate, Red, Green and Blue Ink
34 x 11 inches

Three translations of Borge’s The Library of Babel by James E Irby, Anthony Kerrigan and Babelfish.

In Name

25 found books, Dry transfer type
235 x 9 x 5 inches

My name inserted into the dedications of 25 books.

Sentences

Embossed label tape
72 x 16 inches

Sentences on Conceptual Art by Sol LeWitt alpha-numerically embossed onto black vinyl label tape.

The Powers of Horrors

Two editions of The Powers of Horror: An Essay on Abjection by Julia Kristeva
8.8 x 6.5 x 4 inches

Being and Nothingness

Being and Nothingness by Jean-Paul Sartre, Liquid paper
8 x 5.3 x 1.5 inches

for real though,

I think trying is a big part of it, I think thinking is a big part of it, and I think wanting is a big part of it, but saying it is difficult, and I find saying trying and nearly always wanting. I want what I want to say to go without saying.
Martin Creed

At its core, my practice is about close reading. Through this close reading, I investigate the process through which texts emerge and how, through language, as code, pass out of themselves. Texts are interfaces for meaning. In my work, language is a text. I am interested in the agency of hyper-texts as individual objects of desire and in turn, revulsion.

I use generic materials associated with physical texts: literature, slogans, books, type, liquid paper and label-makers. These inclusive materials deny any sort of individual authorship. I try to remove myself from the work. The processes I use are not unique or special, they are standardized, mathematic, mechanical. The problem with this, like the problem of language, is that everything speaks of itself through denial. The denial of authorship underscores the overwhelming desire for authority. Desire and revulsion.