Saturday, August 19, 2006
John Kalymnios
By Jonathan Goodman
John Kalymnios’s art machines body forth unusual beauty, that of nature especially. Of Greek parentage, Kalymnios was born in Wollongong, Australia, in 1960; he currently lives and works in New York. His art—made of stainless steel, LCD monitors, and plastic magnifying lenses—has focused on the imagery of water over the years, but the reference might be inspired by the coastline of New South Wales as by the Aegean, especially given the theme’s distanced treatment. Kalymnios’s art is thus primarily an example of the postmodern internationalism to which he belongs: his work is abstractly attractive and so doesn’t need to be particularized to a specific culture. Yet, for some time now, precisely because his general concerns have been broadly connected to the theme of water—and because of his own personal and family migrations (and even his name)—one tends to think of The Odyssey as a critical guidepost to his work.
To be sure, Kalymnios racks up considerable postmodern credit in his sculptures, for the materials he uses are often linked to synthetics or high technology. In Rush (2006), for example, eight LCD monitors, arranged horizontally across a wall, bear the same DVD image: a blue patch of open water, which has a quality similar to Vija Celmins’s pencil drawings of water. The mesmerizing result of the repeated image on eight panels is strikingly effective; despite the artificiality of the screens, Rush carries with it a kind of meditational calm, meant to soothe the viewer as he or she meditates on what is seen. Kalymnios’s work generally operates on the principle of mixing synthetic means with natural imagery, resulting in an intriguing amalgam of the real mediated by the artificial. Such a combination actually may be seen as prophetic, as our relations to the real—the world of nature in particular—grow increasingly distanced as we continue to rely on the convenience of machinery, which deeply affects our experience of nature.
In both Horizon Squared (2006) and Kaleidoscope (2006), the imagery consists of blue and white colors on an LCD HD monitor. The hues again suggest the effect of light on water, with a nod perhaps to the light and space projects of James Turrell. In Horizon Squared, the image, which is quite abstract, consists of a dark blue color moving from the side, top, and bottom toward its opposite part of the screen; the association appears to be that of light on the sea. In Kaleidoscope, the physical apparatus and imagery are similar: a DVD player presents another image of light on an LCD HD monitor. The interior rectangle of light blue, surrounded by a frame of dark blue, is spectacularly luminous, bearing the visual consequences of a backlit screen. In both works, the artificial ends up suggesting the purity of nature; it may be that the effect of light, as seen on an LCD monitor, is more spectacularly “real” than the light experienced in the natural world. This possibility has interesting implications for a postmodern audience, for which the presence of something artificial may in fact be most of what they know, so that they no longer experience the technology as something abrasive or dishonest in the realm of art.
Conics—a curved, bright, convex, annealed steel sculpture made in 2006—is some seven feet tall and nearly as wide. The reflection of the mirrorlike surface captures the body of the person viewing it, whose misshapen outline is cause for some mirth. The piece not only reflected the viewer when I saw it, but also the interior of the gallery and even the cars passing by outside on the street, while the steel’s dark color lessens the impact of the distortion on the sculpture’s facade. In this work, the technology is really quite simple; yet its impact is remarkably effective. Unlike a number of other pieces by Kalymnios, the simple form and surface are not technologically oriented, although the results are at least as complex. Conics proves, therefore, that the artist is in complete command of his materials, working with technology when he wants to and also putting together less technically complicated works. His esthetic is one of contingency, in which the necessity of a method must be adjusted to reflect the needs of the object and image itself.
12 x 14 (2006) is a large wall piece consisting of plastic magnifying lenses, a vinyl mural, and an aluminum base. The colored circles of the vinyl mural at the back of the work are refracted through the plastic magnifying lenses, resulting in a distorted presentation of the images, which are seen only as partial circles through the medium of the lenses. The distortion results in beautiful shapes and colors, rather like the imagery found in a kaleidoscope. The idea is very simple, but the consequences of the artist’s decisions are strikingly intricate and successful. This is where Kalymnios is at his best: creating complicated results from relatively simple means, both technologically and imagistically. He shows a remarkable drive to make use of technology, most often not as an end in itself, but rather as a medium by which surprisingly traditional themes can be experienced, as, for example, the surface of water as it encourages contemplation; the self and its reflection; and the beauty of shapes and colors fractured by distortion. For all his high-tech methodologies, there is a part of Kalymnios that is tied to traditional concerns—in this case, how one’s view of things is changed by very simple interventions. It is exciting to see how new media can be exploited within certain kinds of traditions, and Kalymnios is wonderfully confident with his techniques and strategies; in his case, while the medium is part of the message, it is never the entire content of the work alone. The artist is too intelligent in his conceptualizations to allow that to happen.
Jonathan Goodman is a contributing editor to greekworks.com.
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