Reading
Juan Rubén Reyes
27 February - 28 March 2002
First up in the Hard Sell series
is reading by juan rubén reyes, an Auckland based artist
who has shown at Fiat Lux, Teststrip and Ramp Gallery. Trained in
philosophy & poetics, his art practice is concerned with the
materiality of language, the effects of composition on reading and
the creative input needed in all acts of reading. In the past his
work has presented textural environments in panelled pieces and
in an installation format. In these works single words are taken
from some original context, whether it be books or advertising,
and presented as beautiful, significant objects in their own right,
calligrammes of themselves.
In reading we see a queen sized bed partially made with crisp white
linen, beneath which sit opened, half read books. The 'completeness'
of the object upset by a black ink which effuses over the foot of
the bed, spilling from book to bed, bed to book and consequently,
book to book. The bed becomes a visual trope for the stillness and
privacy required in the act of reading, and at the same time the
site of the creative, even violent effusion which results from physical
immobility and isolation when language is present. reading evokes
this situation rather than attempting to capture what is essentially
a dynamic moment. As it appears here, reading is concerned less
with understanding than it is with movement, less with the brain
than with the feet. Perhaps there is something of the flâneur
present in the reader.
Purchase the HARDSELL!! catalogue
Hardsell!! Postcard
Juan Rubén Reyes
reading
Reviews, Essays & Articles Artscene
The Package, #143, April 18 - 24,
2002
Sally McIntyre
HARDSELL - BECAUSE YOU WANT IT!
JUAN RUBÉN REYES - Artist Q&A
In The Physics Room Annual 2002
ISBN# 0-9582359-1-0
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