Mark Cole Nicholas Knight John Pomara
Eugene Binder 218 N. Highland Avenue
Marfa Texas 79843
432.729.3900
Mark Cole Nicholas Knight John Pomara Eugene Binder Marfa Texas 29 September - 29 October 2006
218 N. Highland Avenue Marfa, Texas 79843 t: 432.729.3900 binderart@earthlink.net
Mark Cole Mark Cole’s paintings are constructed in layers. Over a surface of stretched canvas or fabric, he applies a variety of materials either made by himself or found, presumably manufactured for other, commercial purposes. From vastly different sources and originating in vastly different circumstances, the materials Cole makes, acquires, appropriates, or finds initially appear to be at cross purposes with one another. When assembled as overlapping, interlocking elements of a single composition, each competes with the others for visual dominance. This amalgamation of found, cast, painted, drawn, and mechanically printed elements is an important aspect of Cole’s work. The detached, mechanized way in which he paints and draws the representational imagery and casts the abstract forms further disguises his authorship, mimicking the impersonal, manufactured character of the “ready-made”, and generally obscuring the origins of all his materials and applications. The disparate components of Cole’s paintings suggest scrambled roadside detritus, the remnants of a regional iconography providing interstate travelers visual stimulation even as it informs them of sources to satisfy basic needs such as food, gas, and lodging; beer; and gambling. For example, the simulated polychrome wood grain beams in America Dodges Philosophy Again (Part I), 2006, cast by Cole to appear manufactured, replicate the faux bunkhouse architecture of budget motels and roadside restaurants and allude to outdated roadside advertising for franchises which no longer exist. These references to travel through sparsely populated areas in the southwestern United States, specifically the desert, serve as a reminder that this fantasy of unfettered mobility depends on the accessibility of resources from desert regions in other parts of the world. More than any other phenomenon, roadside convenience and its iconography, which clamors for the attention of fossilfuel dependent motorists, have shaped twentieth century American culture. The symbiotic relationship between motorist and roadside provider, often parodied or dramatized in 1950’s and 60’s film1 and television, takes on a decidedly survivalist edge in Cole’s work. In America Dodges Philosophy Again (Part I) both the title and Cole’s use of readymade material engage the viewer in the visual pun and fantasy that we may be able to camouflage ourselves from philosophy. Cole uses a commercially available fabric
1Vincente Minnelli, Long Long Trailer, 1954; Alfred Hitchcock, Psycho, 1960.
printed in a camouflage pattern, also known as “disruptive pattern material” for its ability to inhibit perception of shape and outline. The manufacturer’s logo and the name of the pattern (“Mossy Oak Break Up”) are clearly stamped on the fabric and noticeable on the surface of the work. However, the fabric does not here serve its intended disruptive purpose. Rather, Cole has used it to unify the fragmented, seemingly incongruous elements such as the clumsily painted generic cacti which coexist uneasily on overtly non-coinciding planes. The Mossy Oak Break Up pattern’s strange spatial quality of intersecting trees, branches, leaves, and shadows gives the appearance of fractured areas of receding space. Because it is stretched tightly over wooden supports, not draped over a hunting blind, the repetitive motif of the pattern actually holds together and mediates the much more disparate elements Cole has subsequently layered, including the cacti which, freed from any relationship to a horizon line, freely crawl up the side of the work and across the top. Similarly, though the glossy cast beams are reminiscent of a constructivist composition, they work as a framing device, setting up an oddly formal relationship with the more sporadic aspects of this work. The painting Kool-Aid Commandment, 2006, could be read as a visual comparison of the jarring effect of a roadside trash heap in an otherwise pristine landscape and the gruesome November 1979 Jonestown, Guyana mass suicide by strychnine-laced Kool-Aid. Drawing a connection between roadside litter and suicide, or making one’s corporeal self into litter, was most likely not Cole’s intention. However, as he lived in Houston, Texas during his senior year in high school in the early eighties, he may have heard a 1981 song about this event by a local (Pearland, Texas) band called The Judy’s. The song, Guyana Punch, garnered substantial air time on alternative radio stations in the area. Cole’s seemingly capricious handling of composition and subject matter resonates similarly to the odd mixture of naiveté and black humor in The Judy’s song. Upon first hearing, the actual subject of Guyana Punch is camouflaged, except in the refrain, by an aggressive beat and youthfully exuberant mimicry of Top Forty bubble-gum pop. The juxtaposition of this delivery with such grave subject matter means that several replays are required to comprehend the song’s grim story line. Yet the listener is happy to oblige precisely because the infectious tune and morbid subject matter cannot be separated, making the act of listening involuntary and compulsive, yet enjoyable. So too Cole’s work demands sustained attention for the viewer to see that the seemingly carefree handling raises metaphysical questions.
MARK COLE America Dodges Philosophy Again (Part I), 2006 oil, acrylic, and gesso on printed fabric 84 x 72 inches
MARK COLE Black & White Ecstacy, 2006 oil, acrylic, and gesso on printed fabric 27 x 24 inches
MARK COLE Kool-Aid Commandment, 2006 oil, acrylic, and gesso on canvas 76 x 61 inches
MARK COLE Untitled, 2006 ink and acrylic on paper 18 x 24 inches
Nicholas Knight
Nicholas Knight’s current installation uses a quotation from Ludwig Wittgenstein with which the Austrian philosopher summarized his own work. Initiating the visual course set by the quotation, Knight breaks it down into its grammatical subtext with the spare, almost scientific line used to diagram sentences. This is the most recent in a series of installations and smaller-scale collages which use wellknown and more obscure quotations to examine, among other things, the structure of language. Knight uses the conventions of diagramming to arrest the linear progression of words normally experienced on the printed page, substituting for it a broader visual field open to multiple sequential orderings. Though one might have expected that assigning words to primary, secondary and even tertiary paths based on their grammatical roles, i.e. parts of speech, would clarify their meaning, in fact such schematization blocks immediate access to the quotation, introducing doubt regarding the arrangement of its words, its grammatical structure, and its meaning. This strategy is subtly plied by Knight to engage the viewer in a participatory relationship. The viewer attempts to reconstruct the quote through experimentation with various combinations of word order, reassembling the verbal fragments in a process which can result equally in radically altered “meanings� and nonsensical phrases.
Arriving at the original quotation becomes secondary as the out-of-synch words dissolve into components of a larger composition. Having gone their separate ways, the words no longer possess the power they do when in sentences. The visual takes priority over the verbal as the words of the quotation are encountered not as units of meaning but as fractured components of a composition, two-dimensional shapes whose arrangement is governed by the rules of grammar and angular grids of diagramming. This effect actually illuminates what occurs naturally when we are confronted with an unfamiliar language, as Knight’s use of both English and original German versions of the quote emphasizes. English speakers who do not speak German will automatically see the German words more as visual elements than units of meaning. Similarly, German speakers who do not speak English, rare as they may be, will automatically see the English words more as visual elements than units of meaning. Language is a notoriously limited vehicle for thought, its attempts to mirror reality often seeming to fall short. As Wittgenstein says, “about that of which one cannot speak, one must remain silent.” Where this happens, non-verbal forms of expression such as music or visual art customarily take over. But we ought not dismiss language so quickly. Because it has a visual component, it can show things it cannot say. Knight’s work, with its linguistic and visual aspects, dwells in this region.
NICHOLAS KNIGHT Silent (Wittgenstein), 2006 vinyl and pencil on wall size determined by installation (158 x 248 inches)
NICHOLAS KNIGHT Spaces Between Thoughts (#4), 2006 pencil and collage on paper 18 x 23.5 inches Spaces Between Thoughts (#5), 2006 pencil and collage on paper 18 x 23.5 inches
NICHOLAS KNIGHT Spaces Between Thoughts (#6), 2006 pencil and collage on paper 18 x 23.5 inches Spaces Between Thoughts (#7), 2006 pencil and collage on paper 18 x 23.5 inches
John Pomara In a recent statement about his own work, John Pomara describes his newest paintings and lambda photographs as consisting of “small units of pixilation” which form grids, floating undisturbed over lush, vibrant surfaces. He compares these structures to the architecture of “isolated urbanism”: “hotels and parking lots or empty business campuses”. Indeed, in their apparent design and purposefulness, these “gridded networks [and] matrices” can easily be imagined to be buildings. Eerily devoid of human inhabitants, they are more elegant in their spatial vastness than if they were occupied. Looking at these paintings makes one an observer of another world, and one hopes its tranquility will not be interrupted by an onslaught of vehicles filled with agitated occupants most likely oblivious to the beauty of their surroundings. Pomara states that “[t]he identities of people who reside in the world’s large metropolitan areas are being redefined by the architecture emerging around them.” More than likely their sense of identity is being changed by the realization that a significant part of this architecture was built not for them but for their cars. This is not a new development. As early as 1909, cars were dictating the shape of architecture. That year, Frank Lloyd Wright’s Robie House was built, and its twocar garage was the most controversial part of the total design. At first glance Pomara’s paintings seem coolly analytic, perhaps even instances of a new kind of synthetic abstraction. Terms such as “analytic” and “synthetic” are used to describe stages in the development of Cubism. But the spirit of Pomara’s work is perhaps closer to that of Synchronism and Futurism, which dreamed of a future in which one might have an easier time defining one’s identity through art and architecture in a changing world. Similarly, Pomara’s work, which shows his passion for and commitment to painting—according to some an archaic act—takes us beyond its digital referents to pure visual gratification.
Circuit Sites and Digital Parking Recently, the pixel forms I have been working with have become much more architectural and referential of early video game imagery. The graphic structures hover in a field of color, recreating the visual condition of isolated urbanism. The components of these gridded networks, matrices, and structures call to mind architectural interiors and exteriors and the computer graphics of urban planning. They are comprised of small units of pixilation organized into larger systems with the look of floating hotels and parking lots or empty business campuses. By coopting the look of digital technology I aim to transform what may appear to be utopian architectural schematics into more graphic painterly images. As the globalization of urbanism creates ever more sprawling metropolises, the idea of “place� takes on the visual motif of design information. My work has begun to function as serialized representations of the urban landscape of my current environment. Driving through suburban sprawl one encounters countless spreads of empty office campuses. The paintings and lambda photos reference these urban flatlands with no occupants in site. Structures float silently in a color field of paint. Global urbanism is changing our world. The identities of people who reside in the world’s large metropolitan areas are being redefined by the architecture emerging around them. My paintings engage with this unfolding dialogue. John Pomara
JOHN POMARA Luv-Connection, 2006 oil enamel on aluminum panel 46 x 68 inches
JOHN POMARA Bay-Watch, 2006 lambda photograph on aluminum panel 48 x 67 inches
JOHN POMARA Digital-Dating, 2006 oil enamel on aluminum panel 36 x 47 inches
Exhibition Checklist Clockwise from entrance
1.
Nicholas Knight Silent (Wittgenstein), 2006 pencil and vinyl on wall size determined by installation (158 x 248 inches)
2.
John Pomara Digital-Dating, 2006 oil enamel on aluminum panel 36 x 47 inches
3.
John Pomara Bay-Watch, 2006 lambda photograph on aluminum panel 48 x 67 inches
4-7.
Nicholas Knight Spaces Between Thoughts (#4) Spaces Between Thoughts (#5) Spaces Between Thoughts (#6) Spaces Between Thoughts (#7), 2006 pencil and collage on paper 18 x 23.5 inches each
8.
John Pomara Luv-Connection, 2006 oil enamel on aluminum panel 46 x 68 inches
9.
Mark Cole America Dodges Philosophy Again (Part I), 2006 oil, acrylic, and gesso on printed fabric 84 x 72 inches
10.
Mark Cole Untitled, 2006 ink and acrylic on paper 18 x 24 inches
11.
Mark Cole Black & White Ecstacy, 2006 oil, acrylic, and gesso on printed fabric 27 x 24 inches
12.
Mark Cole Kool-Aid Commandment, 2006 oil, acrylic, and gesso on canvas 76 x 61 inches
Acknowledgments
Thanks to: Joianne Bittle Shirley & Stuart Crow Dorace Fichtenbaum Valerie Kiock Carl Riddle Photography: Eugene Binder: pp. 11, 13, 15, 17, 35, 37, 39, back cover Nicholas Knight: pp. 4-7, 18-19, 21, 24-31, 40-41, front cover Cameras / Lenses: Florian Holzherr and Christian Hacker Essays: Eugene Binder Catalogue Design: Nicholas Knight Editing: Amy Peltz ISBN: 1-4243-1661-8 ISBN-13: 978-1-4243-1661-8 Copyright Š 2006 Eugene Binder, Marfa. All rights reserved. No part of this catalogue may be reproduced without the written consent of Eugene Binder, the publisher, with the exception of brief quotations in articles or reviews.