NICHOLAS KNIG HT / DEPICT U RED 21 MARCH - 19 APRIL 2008
65GRAND 1378 W Grand Ave Chicago, Illinois 60622
When we take a slice out of the world and put boundaries on it, we have made a picture; but to step back and consider this process, and then to put boundaries around our reflections, results in a picture of a very different kind. “Depictured” is an invented word, intended to be caught between two apparent but contradictory meanings. On the one hand, both depict and pictured mean “to portray or represent.” Combined, however, they create a word that suggests “un-pictured”: to take something out of a picture, or disassemble the image altogether. Images are commonly described in terms of a “picture plane.” In this show, the picture plane is replaced by the “register”, the site of a specialized inscription. The work is a meditation on the nature of the inscription that we find at this site, and on the idea that while a picture is primarily about space, the register’s main function is time. The tension that holds the concepts of space and time apart, yet keeps pulling them into each other, is the same tension running through “Depictured”, both the word and the work.
N.K.
Double Frame / Torn Photo, 2007 found frames, torn photograph, hanging hardware, and pencil on wall size determined by installation (71 x 51 inches)
Intension: Tethered, 2007 electrical outlet, modified extension cord, and photograph on panel size determined by installation (16 x 20 x 72 inches)
left to right: Register: Register: Register: Register: Register:
Scott Unscented Bathroom Tissue NestlÊ Rich Chocolate Cocoa Mix Kellogg’s Raisin Bran Crunch Domino Light Brown Sugar Pepperidge Farm Milano
collage and archival pigment prints on canvas 11 x 8.5 inches each / 2008
Register (Bergson), 2008 pencil on wall size determined by installation (110 x 98 inches)
Our Own Effort (Proust): Composite, 2007, archival pigment print, 13 x 17 inches, edition of 20
Our Own Effort (Proust): Consensus, 2007, archival pigment print, 13 x 17 inches, edition of 20
OUR OWN EFFORT (PROUST): COMPOSITE & CONSENSUS
These two prints are the result of a collaborative project with a high school English class at Signature School in Evansville, Indiana. The class was given a grammatically difficult quotation from Marcel Proust’s In Search of Lost Time. Each student attempted to diagram the sentence to the best of his or her ability. The teacher collected their attempts, and without making any corrections, sent them back to me. For the color diagram (the “Composite”), the first student attempt is redrawn on the computer; then, every diagram form in the second attempt that does not already appear in the first is added to the computer drawing in a new color; this process continues until all the student drawings have been integrated into a large, colorful image. It is called the “composite” because every variation, regardless of frequency or correctness, is given equal weight in the final image. The black and white version (the “Consensus”) uses gray tones to show how frequently each part of the diagram occurred among the student attempts. Those grammatical forms that were common to many of the drawings appear darker; forms that only appeared once are very light. Together they make a picture of the “consensus” opinion of the correct analysis. Traditionally, sentence diagramming is a “prescriptive” tool for teaching. It is used to tell students “how things should be”. The composite and consensus diagrams of this project are meant to subvert the “should be” of a prescriptive approach, and present instead a “descriptive” picture of grammar. It is language as a living thing, constantly mutating. Both images are made by compiling all the variations that resulted from attempting to diagram this sentence:
What we have not had to decipher and to clarify by our own effort, what was clear before we came, does not belong to us.
NICHOLAS KNIGHT Born 1975, Indiana. Lives and works in New York City. SOLO AND TWO-PERSON EXHIBITIONS 2008 Depictured. 65GRAND, Chicago. 2007 Sentences. Steven Wolf Fine Arts, San Francisco. 2006 Nicholas Knight and Hideki Nakazawa. Akus Gallery, Eastern Connecticut State University, Willimantic, Connecticut. 2005 Dia / Grammar. Eugene Binder, Marfa, Texas. SELECTED GROUP EXHIBITIONS 2008 Accidental / Coincidental. Newhouse Center for Contemporary Art, Snug Harbor Cultural Center, Staten Island. Curated by Frank Verpoorten. 2007 Latitude / Longitude. Eugene Binder, Marfa, Texas. Nightshift. White Box, New York. Interleaving. Arts + Literature Laboratory, New Haven, Connecticut. The Constructed Image. Toronto Image Works, Toronto, Canada. 2006 Cole, Knight, Pomara. Eugene Binder, Marfa, Texas. Some Assembly Required. The LAB, San Francisco. New ‘06. CUE Art Foundation, New York. Well Read. NurtureArt Gallery, Brooklyn. Curated by Christopher Howard. 2005 Systematic. Vox Populi Gallery, Philadelphia. Wordplay. Julie Saul Gallery, New York. Transubstantiation. Morsel Gallery, Brooklyn. Art on the Line. Galeria Janet Kurnatowski, Brooklyn. 2004 Queens International. Queens Museum of Art, New York. Martha and Me. 128 Rivington Gallery, New York. 2003 TECH-NOW. NewSpace Gallery, Manchester Community College, Manchester, Connecticut. Curated by Joseph Smolinski. info@blah. Mills Gallery, Boston Center for the Arts, Boston.
EDUCATION 1997 Indiana University, Bloomington. Bachelor of Fine Arts, Painting Minor, History and Philosophy of Science. GRANTS AND RESIDENCIES 2007 Artist in Residence, Domaine de Kerguehennec, Bignan, France. Program Odyssey, ACCR, Artist Grant. BIBLIOGRAPHY Finkel, Jori. Out of the Box. Town & Country, October 2007. Murg, Stephanie. Helping Hands. Chelsea Now, August 17-23, 2007. Swanhuyser, Hiya. When Life Hands You Sentence Diagrams. SF Weekly, June 19, 2007. Callaway, Bob. Nicholas Knight at Steven Wolf Fine Arts. Artfever.com, May 4, 2007. Lockhart, Sarah. “Go See This Weekend”, SFist, May 4, 2007. Richard, Frances. “Goings On”, The New Yorker, May 8, 2006. McAdams, Shane. Well Read. The Brooklyn Rail, April 2006. Hulten, Matt. Artists Find Inspiration in Math. Norwich Bulletin, Norwich CT, March 2, 2006. Hulten, Matt. A Self-Organizing Map of Beauty. The Campus Lantern, Eastern Connecticut State University, February 2, 2006. O’Brien, Titus. Marfa Open House; or, How I Stopped Worrying and Learned to Love Donald Judd. Glass Tire: Texas Visual Art Online, Houston, Texas, October 2005. McAdams, Shane. Art On The Line. NY Arts Magazine, July/August 2005. Kalm, James. “Critics Pics”, WagMag, June 2005. La Rocco, Ben. Art On The Line at Kurnatowski. ArtCritical.com, May ‘05. McQuaid, Cate. Taming Technology’s Overload with Artful Systems. Boston Globe, May 2, 2003. Sherman, Mary. Medium Trumps Message. The Boston Herald, April 27, 2003.
Nicholas Knight DEPICTURED 21 March - 19 April 2008
65GRAND 1378 W Grand Ave Chicago, IL 60622 312.719.4325 info@65grand.com director: Bill Gross photography by Nicholas Knight
Thanks to: Joianne Bittle Timothy Knight Dahlia Tulett Thea Liberty Nichols Sarah Hoppe Jim Szyskowski Julia Gregg and her class at Signature School ISBN 978-1-60643-167-2 This catalog is published by 65GRAND in conjunction with Nicholas Knight’s exhibition Depictured. All contents of this catalog are copyright of 65GRAND and Nicholas Knight. All rights reserved, 2008.