Perchings
2024
The Box Gallery, Los Angeles, CA"When we take a general view of the wonderful stream of our consciousness, what strikes us first is the different pace of its parts. Like a bird's life, it seems to be an alternation of flights and perchings. The rhythm of language expresses this, where every thought is expressed in a sentence, and every sentence closed by a period. The resting-places are usually occupied by sensorial imaginations of some sort, whose peculiarity is that they can be held before the mind for an indefinite time, and contemplated without changing; the places of flight are filled with thoughts of relations, static or dynamic, that for the most part obtain between the matters contemplated in the periods of comparative rest... In either case the relations are numberless, and no existing language is capable of doing justice to all their shades." - William James
For the past years, I have been working in errant ways: moving between different mediums, media, forms, languages, contexts, topics and interlocutors, always in pursuit of horizons rather than targets.
A horizon is something you never reach. At sea, the horizon always remains 4.8 km away.
This is an attempt to consolidate a position from within that drift. The exhibition is structured as a conversation with Paul, Mara, and Karen McCarthy. One of the topics and elements of this exhibition in dialogue is a collection of Paul's writing, from his texts to his interviews and scripts. Another is a collection of various publications produced by Paul, Mara, Karen, and The Box. The conversation, once it started, drifted to include other artists and works, some of which are now part of the exhibition. It extended to other topics, other questions, because nothing can ever be analyzed in isolation, and any act of framing or delimiting the parameters of a discussion, though necessary, has to be performed with an awareness of its inherent facticity. Alongside this conversation, I have produced a train of thought or "stream of consciousness," consisting of images printed directly on the wall, gestures installed in the space through the traces they leave behind, a handful of small works, and a video that weaves between these scattered elements and the ideas they open up onto.
I will end with the following passage from the philosopher Gilles Deleuze. If I have ever sought to speak "about" anything in my work, it would be something akin to Deleuze's belief in the world, even or especially in the face of its crushing negation:
"What we most lack is a belief in the world, we have quite lost the world, it has been taken from us. If you believe in the world you precipitate events, however inconspicuous, that elude control, you engender new space-times, however small their surface or volume... Our ability to resist control, or our submission to it, has to be assessed at the level of our every move. "
Julien Bismuth, The Snowman In Our Conversation (After Raymond Roussel), 2024, Carbon paper drawing on wall, 4 x 5.75 inchesJulien Bismuth, Monologues for the lowest and highest points in the room, 2014, Digital audio recording, 01:51:49Mike Bouchet, Wheelbarrow, 1997-2001, Wheelbarrow, concrete, 25.25 x 57.25 x 25.5 inchesPerchings, 2024
Installation view
The Box, Los Angeles (US)
Walt Churchill, Cake Jar 1, 1973, jar, cake, 5 1/2 x 4 7/8 inchesWalt Churchill, Cake Jar 1, 1973, jar, cake, 5 1/2 x 4 7/8 inchesBarbara T. Smith, Itimations of Immortality, Clip From Performances 1969-1999 DVD, 1974, SD video, 00:02:21Julien Bismuth, Around A Thought, 2024, Wooden dowel, 1 x 40 3/8 inchesJulien Bismuth, Hiatus, 2024, (Footage shot in 2014), video Julien Bismuth, Knowledge About A Thing Is Knowledge Of Its Relations, 2024, Dual channel video 00:33:00Julien Bismuth, Knowledge About A Thing Is Knowledge Of Its Relations, 2024, Dual channel video 00:33:00Julien Bismuth, Paul McCarthy, Karen McCarthy, Mara McCarthy, Conversation recorded 11/21/2024, videoJulien Bismuth, Care and Repair Chair, 2010, Breakaway chair, 17 x 17 x 35.125Every thought we have of given fact is, strictly speaking, unique and only bears a resemblance of kind with our other thoughts of the same fact, 2024, Heat-transfer serigraphy on wall 18 1/4 x 12 inchesA myriad of strings to one finger, 2024, Heat-Transfer serigraphy on wall 12 x 22 1/2 inchesGestus Rebus, 2024, Carbon paper drawing on wall 3 x 4 1/4 inchesin the puppet or in the god, 2024, Heat-transfer serigraphy on wall 14 5/8 x 15 1/4 inchesIdeas which faintly hit through the mind at all times, 2024, Heat-transfer serigraphy on wall , 17 1/2 x 25 inches one object seems to be two, 2024, Heat-transfer serigraphy on wall, 17 1/2 x 3 3/4 inchesThe Mystic Writing Pad, 2024, Heat-transfer serigraphy on wall 12 1/4 x 18 1/2 inchesThe net, 2024, Heat-transfer serigraphy on wall 17 1/4 x 15 inchesThe Connected World, 2024 Heat-transfer serigraphy on wall 16x16.5 inchesThe Connected World, 2024 Heat-transfer serigraphy on wall 16x16.5 inchesThey’re Never Home, 2024 Heat-transfer serigraphy on wall 18x10 inchesThe Idea of Comedy, 2024, Plaster and sillicone glove, 5 1/4 x 5 1/2 inches