Lisa Kokin: Facsimile

October 1 - October 30, 2014

Reception for the artist: Saturday, October 4 7 to 9 pm
Gallery talk with Lisa Kokin Saturday, October 18 5 – 6 pm

Lisa Kokin Equilibrium at Seager Gray Gallery



In the past, Lisa Kokin has incorporated readable text or text translated into form (as in her pulped books series) in her art. In her new work, she has substituted text for fragments of stripped-down zippers with (in her own words) “their attendant metaphors of concealment, closure and impenetrability.” The first works were faux pages and page spreads with no reference to specific texts. Some who saw them suggested they might be “sacred” texts, others only “secret” ones. In any case, they are aesthetically amazing - the metal teeth sewn into the airy thread in some kind of undecipherable code, suggesting meaning but not defining it.

“After several months” says Kokin, “the work entered the realm of specificity when I decided to work from particular books and to incorporate fabric as a substrate.” Some of the source material for these works is taken from 12 boxes of books the artist inherited from Kokin’s maternal grandfather. These Included texts on both American and Jewish history.  In addition, Kokin sourced texts of interest to her, including pages from her beloved collection of dictionaries and works by Oscar Wilde and Walt Whitman.

It is difficult to classify Lisa Kokin’s work. She is a conceptual artist to be sure, but few conceptual artists break as many boundaries in working with their materials. Her work has content, humor and social commentary while maintaining a rigorous adherence to painstaking process.

 


Catalog essay by Maria Porges