~CINDERS OPENING PIX . . THE SOOTHE SAYERS: KELIE BOWMAN & JUNGIL HONG
CINDERS PROJECTS PRESENTS – DECADE OF DECADUNCE
JULY 2014 – POP-UP, DOSSIER SEAPORT, NYC
CINDERS
a soothsayer is someone who can tell the future.
and usually it was grim news: as it often foretold death.
in this show, there was lots of foretelling, and most of it – was if not outright grim, then dark. and stormy.
leave it to KELIE BOWMAN and JUNGIL HONG . . quiet contrarians both, to rise above the darkness and dance along the rim of ‘being’, and therefore be the poster girl prophets for . . CREATIVE MINDS = SOOTHING VIBES, no matter how dark the vision . . the vision itself is a powerful, many-splendored thing.
like I said, soothe-sayers.
KELIE BOWMAN, silkscreen. ($300- $700)
here’s the thing about Kelie’s work. in many ways at first sight upon entering this intense group show, it’s easy to write-off her work as an after-thought, a decoration. but, that would be wrong. very wrong.
like a heartbeat in the background . . it pumps the quiet magic that keeps the show afloat.
it’s easy to think of another piece not in the show, as in removed – and the show still going on, but if you minus Kelie’s wordless ‘worlds’ . . a dancer leaves the room, and the show becomes disjointed, verging on cold and cruel. absurdist. surrealist. literal, sad ? less musical, for sure.
they say we live in a uber-violent universe, we certainly live in a very violent world.
it’s been like that since day one, so the deal is . . to trip lightly, and spin out above the fray.
question: so, if we live in a violent universe, is there a peaceful universe somewhere out there, too ?
just asking.
and if so, what’s behind the two ? a big old Tibet Boddhi drawing yin yang circles, and every circle is another set of universes / we find it hard not to be able define, to lock down: the beginning and end of things.
mystery drives us . . crazy.
triangles intersecting is small slice of that mystery, a repeating infinity.
KELIE BOWMAN, silkscreen door panel.
KELIE is one of the two co-founders of CINDERS, and also one of the co-curators of this, their 10 year anniversary show, along with co-founder STO – so in a way, Kelie pulls together all these artists, many with dark thoughts . . but she herself is able to float (serenely) along knowing this crew, her crew . , is still bubbling along. ten years going strong. ok, maybe no more brick and mortar storefront – but most def . . still standing, still dancing, still . . singing the song.
a new age presence on the . . 24/7 digital web.
KELIE BOWMAN, this silkscreen ‘trim’ ran across the top of the exhibit – at places.
I’m thinking you most get the dynamic of Kelie’s energy, inside the show – with her small flag-like, banner-like roll-out that ran across the top of the wall – in certain places.
it reminded me of the multi-colored flags that often shimmer over swim meets, or marinas. it delineates a visual breeze, and a soothing, unifying one at that. also made more significant by being from a curator’s hand, at that.
they should string these things across the faraway deserts, and up over troubled city streets closer to home – just to tell people to chill out. lower the violence, tone it down, as opposed to dialing it up.
folded-up versions in pretty colors should come in gun cases.
I mean, ok we live in a violent universe – but can’t we evolve past the gun being the only way to settle things. I guess not. same old same old, from Augustus through Lincoln.
though on second thought, I got a few people I’d like to strangle to death – with a damn art banner myself. and with my bare hands, and let’s leave it at that.
so as you can see, Kelie’s banners stood for something, running along the top of the room, you can’t tell exactly what they stand for . . but whatever it is, it is generous, and easy . . on the living.
JUNGIL HONG, ‘Summer Snake 13’, letterpress on archival paper, edition of 11. ($150)
now JUNGIL HONG, was an entirely different cup of soothsayer tea, and yet . . just as radical . . if not more so. personally I think this was not only the most graphic piece in the show . . obviously, and if you just want to read it, experience it as such – a pure abstract narrative – go right ahead. but, if you know her past work . . . very dark, richly colored and deeply-felt pictorial ancestral myth-makers . . of animals, like crows amidst eerie spooky non-western landscapes . . then you have to figure she has gone past fables into the realm of the . . super futuristic !!
yes, there may be entropy, death, and destruction of things as we used to know them – esp on the bio, the fragile planetary biosphere plane – but there is also the WEB !! code. new ‘organization’, new pattern – not based so much upon our genesis ‘bio-ness’ . . as much as on digital-ness merged with bio-ness / in a word. code. code building blocks and very much patterned . . in a word: hi-tech ‘animation’.
apparently we only have 5 billion years to figure out how to flee this planet before our lovely but violent sun . . explodes.
so, this is the . . way forward.
slabs of organization. slabs and slices of harmony. or well, at the very least . . ‘code’ dominoes marching on.
domino.
domino effect . . is a hardly a harmonic connotation in (cold war) military terms – which just goes to show you, the visual effect of Jungil’s page. her creative stance, her effect.
she definitely skewers more positive and futuristic, and pure, than the old definition of domino effect, as in war, or car accident . . with Jungil, it’s all about ‘patterns’ and code. and futurism. of a good sort.
I’m thinking:
watch: KILOBOT ROBOT SWARM SELF ASSEMBLES. HARVARD / YouTube
then again, just to show how – these 2 soothe sayers lighten things up, Ima gonna close with a little . .
Urban Dictionary help:
domino effect – chain reaction
when a girl notices your bling
She liked my necklace so she started relaxin’, now that’s what the fk I call a chain reaction.
PHOTOS: NANCY SMITH