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Circumscribe @ Julia Stoschek Collection, Düsseldorf

2019

Rindon Johnson: CIRCUMSCRIBE

March 31 - July 28, 2019 



Julia Stoschek Collection,
Schanzenstrasse 54, 40549 Dusseldorf

 

In CIRCUMSCRIBE , Rindon Johnson's first institutional solo exhibition in Europe, the artist examines material and conceptual forms of circulation and inclusion in terms of capital and consumption as well as language, images, bodies, and new technologies. In addition to well-known works, the exhibition includes new video and virtual reality works, a site-specific livestream installation and a soundtrack produced in cooperation with Milo McBride. 

The English verb to circumscribe has different meanings. It means, on the one hand, "limiting" or "limiting" and is used in connection with the establishment or keeping of boundaries. On the other hand, it means "to label" or "to embrace" in the sense of "bordering" and thus also describes the circumference in geometry. However, both definitions imply a spatial demarcation that, depending on the context or perspective, can be considered a caring act or a violent measure.   

Johnson's investigations, which always start with language, eventually return to her through the titles of the works. Each one comes from a constant triangle of lyric, video or object as well as the viewer. For Johnson, language is not an afterthought but an integral part of any work - it is one of the many materials it finds, appropriates, reassembles, and uses to raise questions of autonomy and power. In Johnson's work, it is the language that tests the autarky of the artwork, suggesting that the sculptural object and the writing are equivalent. 

In this clash of language, object, and recipient, Johnson explores the complex hierarchies upon which our societies are founded, putting their legitimacy and readability to the test. He does this by deciding on a radically subjective and personal point of view, and in his works also gives space to such moments, which remain indeterminate and ambiguous. Using language, Johnson focuses our attention on the often subliminal, yet profound, violence that characterizes not only his own life, but also the daily lived experiences of each and every one of us. Meanings, however, are veiled or rejected in his work, so that each utterance is at the same time an act of rejection - a refusal to submit to the rules, and on the other hand a refusal to disappear without comment. Instead, we are faced with a longing to overcome the constricting states, all the different cages and categorizations that determine our here and now.

CIRCUMSCRIBE is part of the one-year program horizontal vertigo in the JULIA STOSCHEK COLLECTION in Düsseldorf and Berlin, curated by Lisa Long.

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Video Walk through of Exhibition

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- Mousse Magazine, Between in Conversation with Maurin Dietrich

- TAZ

- Artforum Critic's Pick

- Das geht alles auf eine Kuhhaut - RP

- WDR 5 - Culture

Foreground: Strange Provenance Landscape 1: Before we begin, let me establish some things that I cannot name through Serpentine and the Rhine. I’ve split three stones and polished one, you’ll see them here; all of these stones come from Zimbabwe. Zimbabwe is a landlocked country in southern Africa known for its dramatic landscape and diverse wildlife; it is about the size of Germany. My German friend Stefan went to Zimbabwe in 1998 to learn about sculpture from the legendary Shona sculptors of Zimbabwe. Zimbabwe has many colors of stone, there are ancient dried river beds in Zimbabwe and each river bed is filled with different types of stone (the black kind in particular is known for its delicacy under stress, few black stones can boast such endurance). Stefan and his friends went to all the different mines and mined some stones and Stefan put them in a shipping container and sent them home to Hanover, where 17,000 tons still remain, on the family farm. The stone is Serpentine, from Zimbabwe, it is shown here in filtered water from the Rhine, that is Rhine from Middle-High-German Rin, as in just down the road and ultimately from Gaulish Renos meaning that which flows; to move, flow, run. 2019 Aquarium with metal stand, filtered Rhine water, Zimbabwean Serpentine Stone, 92 x 120 x 40 cm Background: Strange Provenance Landscape 2: Serpentine rewires your brain, a hot flame makes its way up, Serpentine is about rebirth, and beginning and returning, as a snake enjoys the snack of its own tail, definitely a convenient way to use vibrational energies, so does the stone remind us of our position as bodies in an orbital transit. Snakes actually do eat their own tails, it is a sign of distress. But the snake is a stand-in for something else now, this action of a snake body is referred to as the Ouroboros, and of the Ouroboros it is said: One is the serpent which has its poison according to two compositions, one is All and through it is All, and by it is All, and if you have not All, All is nothing. 2019, Aquarium with metal stand, filtered Rhine water, Zimbabwean Serpentine Stone, 192 x 120 x 40 cm
Foreground: Strange Provenance Landscape 1: Before we begin, let me establish some things that I cannot name through Serpentine and the Rhine. I’ve split three stones and polished one, you’ll see them here; all of these stones come from Zimbabwe. Zimbabwe is a landlocked country in southern Africa known for its dramatic landscape and diverse wildlife; it is about the size of Germany. My German friend Stefan went to Zimbabwe in 1998 to learn about sculpture from the legendary Shona sculptors of Zimbabwe. Zimbabwe has many colors of stone, there are ancient dried river beds in Zimbabwe and each river bed is filled with different types of stone (the black kind in particular is known for its delicacy under stress, few black stones can boast such endurance). Stefan and his friends went to all the different mines and mined some stones and Stefan put them in a shipping container and sent them home to Hanover, where 17,000 tons still remain, on the family farm. The stone is Serpentine, from Zimbabwe, it is shown here in filtered water from the Rhine, that is Rhine from Middle-High-German Rin, as in just down the road and ultimately from Gaulish Renos meaning that which flows; to move, flow, run. 2019 Aquarium with metal stand, filtered Rhine water, Zimbabwean Serpentine Stone, 92 x 120 x 40 cm Background: Strange Provenance Landscape 2: Serpentine rewires your brain, a hot flame makes its way up, Serpentine is about rebirth, and beginning and returning, as a snake enjoys the snack of its own tail, definitely a convenient way to use vibrational energies, so does the stone remind us of our position as bodies in an orbital transit. Snakes actually do eat their own tails, it is a sign of distress. But the snake is a stand-in for something else now, this action of a snake body is referred to as the Ouroboros, and of the Ouroboros it is said: One is the serpent which has its poison according to two compositions, one is All and through it is All, and by it is All, and if you have not All, All is nothing. 2019, Aquarium with metal stand, filtered Rhine water, Zimbabwean Serpentine Stone, 192 x 120 x 40 cm
If I swallow my spit long enough I can trick myself into thinking I have eaten. The slab sees itself in its own mirror, an echo for the sake of creating a void (void as in a space of lazy intellectual voyage) OR! Even when one is in one position he is also in the other, which might mean he is in neither position at all. 2019, Live Stream, Dimensions variable
If I swallow my spit long enough I can trick myself into thinking I have eaten. The slab sees itself in its own mirror, an echo for the sake of creating a void (void as in a space of lazy intellectual voyage) OR! Even when one is in one position he is also in the other, which might mean he is in neither position at all. 2019, Live Stream, Dimensions variable
Leah and I were walking through the park once and I was telling her all about the cows and what they might mean sitting out there waiting for me to come back to look at them. We sat down on a bench overlooking where the lake ends by the boat house. It was just before when the street lights go on, the light was blue and sinking. We looked at the water pausing thinking between ourselves. The water was still and was an exact mirror of the sky. As we were thinking a great deal of ducks all descended from the sky, I would say 100, at least. The sky and the water blackened with them. They all landed on the water at nearly the exact same time. As though they were some sort of reflection of themselves descending into themselves. Or the All is one. Or this is such or such a thing. They have attached a particular word to an object or a fact and thereby consider themselves to have appropriated it. The women say they have reduced you to silence. The women say the language you speak poisons your tongue, lips. They say the language you speak is made up of words that are killing you. Whatever they have not laid hands on does not appear in the language you speak. This is apparent in the space they have not been able to fill with their words. These spaces can be found in the gaps: in the perfect circle, to imprison them and to overthrow. 2019, 35mm slides, Dimensions variable
Leah and I were walking through the park once and I was telling her all about the cows and what they might mean sitting out there waiting for me to come back to look at them. We sat down on a bench overlooking where the lake ends by the boat house. It was just before when the street lights go on, the light was blue and sinking. We looked at the water pausing thinking between ourselves. The water was still and was an exact mirror of the sky. As we were thinking a great deal of ducks all descended from the sky, I would say 100, at least. The sky and the water blackened with them. They all landed on the water at nearly the exact same time. As though they were some sort of reflection of themselves descending into themselves. Or the All is one. Or this is such or such a thing. They have attached a particular word to an object or a fact and thereby consider themselves to have appropriated it. The women say they have reduced you to silence. The women say the language you speak poisons your tongue, lips. They say the language you speak is made up of words that are killing you. Whatever they have not laid hands on does not appear in the language you speak. This is apparent in the space they have not been able to fill with their words. These spaces can be found in the gaps: in the perfect circle, to imprison them and to overthrow. 2019, 35mm slides, Dimensions variable
Draw a Figure round another touching it at points but not cutting it. 2019, Single channel HD Video, 1’58’’, color, sound, loop, projected onto plexiglass and aged dirt ridden rawhide, Dimensions variable. 
Draw a Figure round another touching it at points but not cutting it. 2019, Single channel HD Video, 1’58’’, color, sound, loop, projected onto plexiglass and aged dirt ridden rawhide, Dimensions variable. 
Background: Why, if it was so bad here, did he not go to another place to live? So it’s pretty big, it’s about twice the size of my fist, you can hear the bag is crunching as I turn it over, there’s not a single animal, no insect, nothing, it is so old it reflects back blue light, so on a very clear, cool day, it is hard to say where it is that the sun meets the sky. They brought me here, the boy replied. 2019, rawhide, dirt, 90 x 60 x 40 cm Foreground: Neither nor, what then? What happens when my feast is dependent on another? At Home Depot I passed him in the aisle and as I passed him, I saw that his arm and shoulder had been badly burned, the skin, in its healing had turned pink, yellow, waxy, and heavy, rendering his arm small in comparison to his large, strong body. I desired his arm so much in that moment I was rendered speechless, he became simply his arm and my eyes feasted. Fickle, complicated little feast day. Then I bought a rubber mallet, went back to the studio and finished my installation. 2019, Rawhide, indigo, dirt, 95 x 80 x 50 cm
Background: Why, if it was so bad here, did he not go to another place to live? So it’s pretty big, it’s about twice the size of my fist, you can hear the bag is crunching as I turn it over, there’s not a single animal, no insect, nothing, it is so old it reflects back blue light, so on a very clear, cool day, it is hard to say where it is that the sun meets the sky. They brought me here, the boy replied. 2019, rawhide, dirt, 90 x 60 x 40 cm Foreground: Neither nor, what then? What happens when my feast is dependent on another? At Home Depot I passed him in the aisle and as I passed him, I saw that his arm and shoulder had been badly burned, the skin, in its healing had turned pink, yellow, waxy, and heavy, rendering his arm small in comparison to his large, strong body. I desired his arm so much in that moment I was rendered speechless, he became simply his arm and my eyes feasted. Fickle, complicated little feast day. Then I bought a rubber mallet, went back to the studio and finished my installation. 2019, Rawhide, indigo, dirt, 95 x 80 x 50 cm
Left: Diana Said: / If you stop me / from cutting / your hair, / there is a sense / in which / you are / interfering. / * / But, since you are entitled / to determine / whether I cut your hair / or not, you do not / wrong me. / * / I make your trip to the store a waste. / * / I buy the last quart of milk / before you / get there. 2019, Virtual-Reality-Installation, 7’15’’, 4096 x 2160 pixels, Animation by Pariah Interactive. Right: Pleasure is a self-organizing structure. (When you are in one position you are also in the other position.) 2019, Single Channel HD Video, 2’55’’, Dimensions variable
Left: Diana Said: / If you stop me / from cutting / your hair, / there is a sense / in which / you are / interfering. / * / But, since you are entitled / to determine / whether I cut your hair / or not, you do not / wrong me. / * / I make your trip to the store a waste. / * / I buy the last quart of milk / before you / get there. 2019, Virtual-Reality-Installation, 7’15’’, 4096 x 2160 pixels, Animation by Pariah Interactive. Right: Pleasure is a self-organizing structure. (When you are in one position you are also in the other position.) 2019, Single Channel HD Video, 2’55’’, Dimensions variable
Quickly there, hasten forward. Nothing is much like what I thought it would. Living a life with yourself and the shadow of a slow-moving fan on a floor or on a collar bone. Keep me at night then. Nothing does not belong to you. It is like fishing not catching. Today we are three in number. When the landscape becomes another thing do we as we are reorganized around the new landscape. If I forget the words I’ll make them up: black ships of foreign appearance at day break and the heat and then, nothing more. 2018 (ongoing), Vaseline, ebonizing (coffee) dye, rust, leather, 167 x 117 cm
Quickly there, hasten forward. Nothing is much like what I thought it would. Living a life with yourself and the shadow of a slow-moving fan on a floor or on a collar bone. Keep me at night then. Nothing does not belong to you. It is like fishing not catching. Today we are three in number. When the landscape becomes another thing do we as we are reorganized around the new landscape. If I forget the words I’ll make them up: black ships of foreign appearance at day break and the heat and then, nothing more. 2018 (ongoing), Vaseline, ebonizing (coffee) dye, rust, leather, 167 x 117 cm
It is April (JSC). 2019, Single channel HD Video,12’02’’, color, sound. Dimensions variable. 
It is April (JSC). 2019, Single channel HD Video,12’02’’, color, sound. Dimensions variable. 
Among other things (nearby occasions or eight acts for Jeremy) - What should we call this form of existence: a constant vista where from one view one can see the cage of one binding state and from another view, another binding state? Come here and have a taste (play to be played). Hadi writes: All night I dreamed of these lines and couldn’t help it other than believing that dreaming these lines means I should send them to you; it is coming from an old poem that made sense to me when I saw the cage inside the cage. Birds are free of cages, and cages are free of birds / Where have you come from that causes you to be so free / Although every bird’s voice is a kind of crying for the end of the day / You must sing more since your cry more sounds like the beginning of the day. / I think birds are standing for people, but I’m not sure what the cage stands for. You must know. (I don’t.) Maybe there are things that we should become accustomed to not seeing or knowing (I entered the tunnel of my own will) I play the song over and over; without beginning and without end or when you drudge up the past needlessly the Dutch say you’re digging up old cows. 2019, Single channel HD video, 26’34’’, color, sound. Dimensions variable.
Among other things (nearby occasions or eight acts for Jeremy) - What should we call this form of existence: a constant vista where from one view one can see the cage of one binding state and from another view, another binding state? Come here and have a taste (play to be played). Hadi writes: All night I dreamed of these lines and couldn’t help it other than believing that dreaming these lines means I should send them to you; it is coming from an old poem that made sense to me when I saw the cage inside the cage. Birds are free of cages, and cages are free of birds / Where have you come from that causes you to be so free / Although every bird’s voice is a kind of crying for the end of the day / You must sing more since your cry more sounds like the beginning of the day. / I think birds are standing for people, but I’m not sure what the cage stands for. You must know. (I don’t.) Maybe there are things that we should become accustomed to not seeing or knowing (I entered the tunnel of my own will) I play the song over and over; without beginning and without end or when you drudge up the past needlessly the Dutch say you’re digging up old cows. 2019, Single channel HD video, 26’34’’, color, sound. Dimensions variable.