Gabriel Kuri
Kunsthall Bergen in Norway have kindly sent me the curator text and press photos of the recent Gabriel Kuri show at Bergen Library previously mentioned on this blog.
Kuri presents eight new mobile sculptures, as four pairs, corresponding to materials and qualities that already exist in the architecture and interior of the library. The sculptures are also containers of a varied selection of objects including newspapers, stones, book loan receipts, potted plants and the library’s waste-paper bins Each is equipped with wheels to travel freely around the library, reminiscent of John Cage’s Rolywholyover A Circus exhibition at MOCA, LA in 1993.
Kuri works with remains: “Empty containers, packaging or remains of the actual act of purchasing: receipts that remain after the financial transaction has been completed; adhesive labels that are removed from the apple before it is washed and eaten; plastic bags that the goods are carried in on the way home from the shop; or the plastic bottles that only exist as containers for the true product (the mineral water inside). These are all some of the things that surround us all the time, but which often only spend a brief moment in our hands before being redirected into a system for waste disposal or recycling.
One pair of Kuri’s works in the library, Element C.1, consist each of three coloured bins with plastic liners in a veneered plywood structure on wheels, which creates a movable set corners for the bins. “During his preparations for the exhibition Kuri observed how the corners of the library were often used for an eclectic selection of waste bins in a number of different colours and shapes. The bins are strategically placed in places where experience has shown that there is a need to throw away rubbish. Each department of the library has a number of waste bins that are discreetly placed, often in fact in corners. Kuri’s rolling corners are bearers of just such waste bins. the waste bins are an effective reminder that the things with which we surround ourselves often encode a balance between use value and instant waste. The books in the library too can be seen in such a perspective. The library is forced to scrap many books every year. So are the publishers, who ‘bin’ a large number of books every season. And one sees that there is a fine line between the book as information and as elevated source of knowledge on the one hand, and the book as a simple material object consisting of printer’s ink on paper on the other.”
A second pair of works in red and blue powder coated steel, Element A.2, resemble giant extended book ends with pigeon-deterrent spikes functioning as receipt spikes. “These slips of paper, like receipts for purchases and transactions, have a distinct character as bearers of highly specific information and at the same time as useless waste.”
Kuri’s works oftens involves a continual cataloguing and organizing of objects and information. “In earlier works he has, for example, sorted a large number of receipts by size into special heaps, a system that becomes absurd compared with the verifiable filing system of a bookkeeper. In another work he has organized a number of utility objects by criteria such as whether the thing is wrapped, whether it is made of wood or plastic, whether it is in one piece or put together with several pieces, etc. These ordering principles may be unconventional, but in fact make up distinct and internally coherent systems.”
