Klud
By Marcello Dolce, Eve Doolin, Neidy Godinez, Jessica Hang, Anna Helm, Martin Lammert, Ian Stanton, Brandon Jardine.
Opening January 21, 2016 @ 7:30 pm
On view January 21, 2016 – February 21, 2016
Emergency Room and Matchbox galleries, together with newly formed Sculpture Library at Rice University, are pleased to present the group exhibition Klud, which brings together eight young Los Angeles artists, all of whom recently completed undergraduate art school at USC. Working in far flung Los Angeles neighborhoods such as Highland Park, Studio City, Boyle Heights, Mid-Wilshire and Cypress Park (and the relatively exotic zone of St Louis), the group will assemble in Houston for a three-room exhibition of recent work. Employing sculpture, photography, and painting, Klud will mark the first public exhibition of many of the participating artists.
If klud was a real word, it would suggest something muted and declarative at the same time. The word is an onomatopoeic cross between clunk and thud, suggesting a heavy thump like the thud of a body when it hits the ground. Klud is unexpected, an intrusion and, possibly, an abrupt change of plans. Klud is a thought redirected before it is even formed, an articulate grunt, a particulate thud, and for the artists in the show, an interruption before there is anything to be interrupted. Klud is the sound of the other shoe falling first.
In 1968 Joseph Beuys, Henning Christianesen and Johanes Stüttgen recorded the performance Ja Ja Ja Ja Ja Ja Nee Nee Nee Nee Nee [Yes Yes Yes Yes Yes No No No No No] at Staatliche Kunstakademie Dusseldorf. For almost an hour, the three participants recited the phrase Ja Ja Ja Ja Ja Nee Nee Nee Nee Nee at varying speeds and pitch, but mostly in a loosely rhythmic murmur. In this piece, Beuys gives us a ceaseless repetition of responses (yes, yes, no, no) to an unknown question that we never asked. To certain ears, this mumbled chanting produces a kludding rather than entrancing or hypnotic effect. Beuys’ recording could be considered a sound track to this exhibition.