HARD LOCK
Ballistic rubber blocks, black carbon, white paper
Renderings for drawing, print, and installation.
Breaking things down to their elemental geometric and molecular structure to analyze-the man primitive, the building blocks of the power narrative, the fundamentals of the sexual stance.
“Final pose” prints and “daka” drawings from the body of work Ekklesiastes.
1). Ladder “H”– 44W x 108H, graphite, pigment, residue on paper
2). Tablets “A/B” – 44W x 50H, C-print
3). Dismas and Gestas – 57W x 76H C-print
4). Shroud “F” – 44W x 70H graphite, residue on paper
5). Shroud “G” – 44W x 65H graphite, graphite wash, residue on paper
“Final pose” prints are photos taken of chairs before they are processed.
Daka is the Hebrew word meaning “to crush (emotionally)”, or Dakka, to be crushed, or Daqqa in Arabic, a crushed mix of green chili peppers, herbs, and tomatoes
#foldedmetalchair
Here I am branding “Artifact G” with an AF Sneetch logo.
I collect old folding chairs and prepare them to be exhibited, lettered A to Z. This is G.
I begin with a “final pose” photograph where the chair or multiple chairs are set in presentation form; hung on a wall or laid flat on the floor. These images are digitally printed and mounted.
I smash the chair with a hand sledge hammer, flattening the chair causing a permanent transformation that disables the chair. This is sculpture.
Some chairs are smashed on a large piece of paper, their essence infused into the fibers. An acheiropoieton (greek: not made by hand), a ghost image of the spirit leaving the body. A drawing or print.
I record the smashing process, a performance called Ekklesiastes (Greek; preacher, member of the assembly, teacher, or collector in Greek/Hebrew). I recite the books of the Bible from memory while hammering the chairs flat with a hand sledge. A documentary video.
the perennial surprise; my two children, so different
how God, if he is a father, must say the same
this one harvests, nurtures, protects, mourns over injustice
that one, bombs, berates, molests, takes for himself
how that slight difference in dna matters
near identical
how are they so different, God the father must ask
** *******
And now the forces marshaled around the concept of the group have declared a war of extermination on the preciousness, the mind of man. By disparagement, by starvation, by repressions, forced direction, and the stunning hammerblows of conditioning, the free, roving mind is being pursued, roped, blunted, drugged. -John Steinbeck
1. group 1 (standard), 2026
2. group 2 (assembly), 2026
3. group 3(yellow w/ transparency), 2026
4. group 4 (light gray), 2026
5. artifact G (lamentation), 2026
Work; and a child.
A monument to conditions; homogeneous expression, automated replacement, residual bonds, cultural catenation, coercive, mimetic, and normative isomorphism. Stunted play and a loss of fitness, lacking the requisite elements of engagement, diversity, and complexity.
Built on a Noguchian scaffolding, a structural and aesthetic language that binds me to my birthplace (Detroit) and my children’s (Atlanta). Highest order human-made wayfinding forms. Landmarks for development, experience, exposure, psychological, cultural, and geographic centering, to a collective non-tribalistic identity. Freedom and joy.
#noguchi #fivegallonbucket #foldedmetalchair #isamunoguchi #noguchiplayscape #hartplaza
Collecting acoustic ghosts from the vacant sound scape at LOOP site with my friend and collaborator Andy Lackey. We caught the building’s open signature just in time before partial sheetrock enclosure. Give it a good listen...
Big visions for a large space.
Image, object, motion, interaction, robotics, surveillance…?
“Diptych, D–diploid”
and
“E–with emerging phonemes”
Continuing with common objects as embodiments of individuals under pressure, these two video works are designed with proximity sensors that activate their motion and sound when they are approached. The nearer you get the faster and louder they perform until left alone or to complete their cycle.
I later flatten each chair by hand and label it with a single letter.
For me the change is not only in dimension, but in substance and value, as the language around them literally takes form.
#1 Tablets
digital print
39” x 45”
#2 Tablets in the Assembly (installation view)
#3 I.W.HA - Video adaptation of a 1967 speech by politician and Baptist minister Adam Clayton Powell Jr, “What’s in your hand.”
Mamdani quote, “More than a million of us stood in our churches, in gymnasiums, in community centers, as we filled in the ledger of democracy.”
#mamdani
