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JOHN
KALYMNIOS
Dates: September 8 – October 20, 2001
Opening Reception: Saturday September 8, 5–7 pm
Marcel Sitcoske Gallery is proud to present our second solo exhibition
of work by New York based sculptor John Kalymnios. With this current
body of work, Kalymnios expands upon his last show at the gallery,
using aluminum, lucite, motors, and photography to focus on the
natural world and the ways in which we perceive it.
Although he considers himself a sculptor, Kalymnios creates works
that defy simple categorization. He is more interested in pushing
his media to accomplish his artistic goals than in rigid adherence
to an essentialist dogma. Take for instance his Untitled (Gradations
VII). Upon first encountering them, they appear to be blocks of
solid blue mounted on aluminum shelves, varying from light blue
to a deep, almost purple hue.
When viewed from the side however, their solidity disappears as
they reveal themselves to be transparent two-inch thick slabs of
lucite. Their rich color comes from a photograph of a section of
the sky mounted onto the back of each slab. When viewed head-on
the polished sides of the lucite reflect this color, turning the
photographs' flatness into solid mass. It is his refreshing approach
to artistic production that makes all of Kalymnios' work so disarming
and awe-inspiring.
In much of Kalymnios’ work, the subject is perception itself.
Standing before Untitled (Mirrror), we gaze into a grid of constantly
rotating round mirrors mounted on a fixed square mirror behind them.
As the background mirror reflects a static image of ourselves, the
rotating mirrors disrupt this stability as we catch a fleeting eye
or a corner of a wall that quickly departs with the rotation. The
effect is unsettling and mesmerizing at the same time. After our
initial disorientation we are able to surrender to the work and
attune ourselves to its rhythm.
Similarly Untitled (Spiral) fixes our gaze with its translucent
columns flowing up and down. Rendered in
lo-tech, industrial materials, the piece is at once a meditation
on our experience of natural wonder as well an exploration of the
way we perceive and interact with the world and the objects in it.
As Jane Harris writes of Kalymnios’ works: “The equanimity
of their authenticity and artifice is conveyed with Duchampean nonchalance
as these manufactured illusions consciously expose their mechanizations
to enhance our fascination.”* We are rapt by their aesthetic
beauty, their physicality and their conceptual framework. John Kalymnios’
artworks have a power that we must recognize and submit to if we
are to be fully moved by them.
Earlier this year, Kalymnios became the first visual artist to be
commissioned by the Museum of Natural History in New York to produce
work for a scientific exhibition when they asked him to create a
large-scale version of his Untitled (Mirror) for their current Genomic
Revolution exhibition.
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