Works

K

, 2009
Metal brackets, aluminium bar, pulleys, nylon cord, nuts and bolts, electric motor
Various dimensions

K is the title of a series of five works. They are spiders clinging to the wall. They have thin legs and the arachnid’s ability to work by stealth, methodically. Relentlessly.
Their mechanism is quite simple: an electric motor activates a black nylon cord and unwinds it from a pulley to the next, tracing a slow squeaking sound around the metal structure.

They were conceived for a solo exhibition at the Newman Popiashvili Gallery in New York. The title of the exhibition was Variable Intensity Rain Gradient Aloft, meaning a particular kind of rain which, falling from a cloud, evaporates before it can reach the ground.
When I think back at the Ks, I believe they still hold the centre of that exhibition. They keep its precariousness. They stay there, still on an unstable limit, balancing between ascent and descent, gravity and levitation. They’re always trembling, lightly, tending to keep control.