LAUREN KALMAN
MAY/JUNE 2015
Devices for Filling a Void
"My work combines functional and craft objects, sculpture, photography, video, installation and performance. Through my work, I bring to light uncomfortable connections in visual culture between body image, media, class, and style.
Historically my work has references diseases like acne, cancer, herpes, and elephantiasis, or physical trauma like amputation and facial reconstruction surgery; presenting them as jeweled infections, fabric growths, or wearable electronic instruments.
My recent work has utilized a sterile aesthetic borrowed from Modernism combined with adornment and the female body. Fabricated objects that reflect sculptural ornamentation and adornment are combined with the body and design objects to produce photographs. These juxtapositions point to historical, political, and social contexts relating to sex, gender, power, pleasure, and beauty." - LK
"My work combines functional and craft objects, sculpture, photography, video, installation and performance. Through my work, I bring to light uncomfortable connections in visual culture between body image, media, class, and style.
Historically my work has references diseases like acne, cancer, herpes, and elephantiasis, or physical trauma like amputation and facial reconstruction surgery; presenting them as jeweled infections, fabric growths, or wearable electronic instruments.
My recent work has utilized a sterile aesthetic borrowed from Modernism combined with adornment and the female body. Fabricated objects that reflect sculptural ornamentation and adornment are combined with the body and design objects to produce photographs. These juxtapositions point to historical, political, and social contexts relating to sex, gender, power, pleasure, and beauty." - LK
1 / Device for Filling a Void (3)
2015 Slip cast earthenware ~2x2x3” 2 / Device for Filling a Void (4) 2015 Slip cast earthenware ~2x2x3” 3 / Device for Filling a Void (5) 2015 Slip cast earthenware ~2x2x3” |
4 / Device for Filling a Void (6)
2015 Slip cast earthenware ~2x2x3” 5 / Device for Filling a Void (7) 2015 Slip cast earthenware ~2x2x3” 6 / Device for Filling a Void (8) 2015 Slip cast earthenware Each (2) ~1x1x1” |
I met American artist Lauren Kalman in Canberra late last year when she was artist in residence at the Australian National University’s School of Art. I had been aware of her work for some time; so I was particularly interested in hearing her talk about her practice as well as offering her a magical mystery tour of Canberra as a guise to get to know her a little better. My plan worked and Lauren happily agreed to send me some work for the Personal Space Project.
I wouldn’t call Lauren Kalman a jeweller as such, instead I would describe her as a contemporary artist who uses the language, history and understanding of jewellery as a means of exploring and questioning larger ideas of the body as a whole. Kalman’s work traverses the borders of art and craft disciplines. She is unafraid of utilizing whatever medium satisfies her intent and many of her objects are displayed alongside photographs for context. Although you could also reverse that statement, in Kalman’s practice each piece acts as singular artwork and support.
For the Personal Space Project this month, Kalman has sent me six ‘Devices for Filling a Void’, with the intention that I create the accompanying photographs for display. I was excited by this prospect and while I had initially intended using another person as the model, I knew that it would be important for me capture my own experience in the image (although not even my own mother recognized me in the photos).
As objects Kalman's 'Devices' are bulbous, white and peculiar - they are curious forms, with tooth marks or finger sized imprints. They beg questions. What do they do? Where do they go? They are made from slip cast earthenware, a material which alludes to everyday objects such as domestic crockery that are innocuous and familiar. Yet these devices hint at the abject, they are for filling bodily voids, for stopping out function. It appears that these devices are for your mouth or for the space of your closed hand. Kalman sent me very few instructions; instead preferring to test how these devices might be understood or used by another.
These pieces are challenging, but I found them strangely enticing, instinctively wanting to see how they would fill my bodily voids. The thing is, my jaw doesn’t open as far as Kalman's (from which these objects are modelled), so these pieces don’t ‘fit’ me. You can see in the images that I have to hold the piece or shove it in as far as it goes. For Kalman they might not be uncomfortable as such, but for me they offered another experience, an absolute awareness of my body as well as hers. I found this fascinating and I must admit entirely unexpected, somehow I didn't expect them not to fit. This work is intense yet playful, thoughtful and intriguing and I have a feeling that this work and the experience of interaction with it will sit with me for a long time yet. - ZB
I wouldn’t call Lauren Kalman a jeweller as such, instead I would describe her as a contemporary artist who uses the language, history and understanding of jewellery as a means of exploring and questioning larger ideas of the body as a whole. Kalman’s work traverses the borders of art and craft disciplines. She is unafraid of utilizing whatever medium satisfies her intent and many of her objects are displayed alongside photographs for context. Although you could also reverse that statement, in Kalman’s practice each piece acts as singular artwork and support.
For the Personal Space Project this month, Kalman has sent me six ‘Devices for Filling a Void’, with the intention that I create the accompanying photographs for display. I was excited by this prospect and while I had initially intended using another person as the model, I knew that it would be important for me capture my own experience in the image (although not even my own mother recognized me in the photos).
As objects Kalman's 'Devices' are bulbous, white and peculiar - they are curious forms, with tooth marks or finger sized imprints. They beg questions. What do they do? Where do they go? They are made from slip cast earthenware, a material which alludes to everyday objects such as domestic crockery that are innocuous and familiar. Yet these devices hint at the abject, they are for filling bodily voids, for stopping out function. It appears that these devices are for your mouth or for the space of your closed hand. Kalman sent me very few instructions; instead preferring to test how these devices might be understood or used by another.
These pieces are challenging, but I found them strangely enticing, instinctively wanting to see how they would fill my bodily voids. The thing is, my jaw doesn’t open as far as Kalman's (from which these objects are modelled), so these pieces don’t ‘fit’ me. You can see in the images that I have to hold the piece or shove it in as far as it goes. For Kalman they might not be uncomfortable as such, but for me they offered another experience, an absolute awareness of my body as well as hers. I found this fascinating and I must admit entirely unexpected, somehow I didn't expect them not to fit. This work is intense yet playful, thoughtful and intriguing and I have a feeling that this work and the experience of interaction with it will sit with me for a long time yet. - ZB