" YOUR WET SLEEVE IN MY NECK "
November 6TH - December 18th, 2010
Galerie Lucile Corty - 2 Rue Borda, 75003 PARIS
– Press text sum up:
The joint - or the joining part - as structural component plays a large role throughout the works in
the exhibition "Your Wet Sleeve in My Neck". In each of the works the joining part is maintained as
a component, but is also recognized as the generator of a larger whole, allowing us to look closer at
the act of 'making things'. Based on Heidegger's notion of 'the thing', where the thing is defined
by virtue of its relationship to everything else, the differing features of such structural components
can be seen as the result of the individual contexts in which they are placed. The 'joint' or joining part can
thus be presented as autonomous object that can be implemented through its relation to other parts,
comparable to Heidegger's notion of 'the thing'. A corresponding confirmation of this statement can be
found in Elizabeth Grosz' conception of the thing, as described in her text "Notes on the Thing":
"The thing is both pre- and post-technological, that which technology finds given and remakes as its own. In this sense, technology
must be understood to be the second-order thing, the thing that finds and makes other things, as it itself has been made." 1
In the presented works, the joint "finds and makes other things, as it itself has been made". The works
shown in the exhibition emphasize an interpretation of the joining part as a 'design solution,' and as the
materialization of the phenomenon of technology, acting as symbol of human intervention and thus form
the embodiment of the 'second-order thing'. The role of the joint as structural component is seen as a
guiding position in the expression of the whole, illustrating that the joint comes forth from one material as
it informs another. Through its specified role as part and generator of a larger whole, the joint as
'second-order thing' unavoidably finds and makes 'other things'.
In this way we can understand that material possesses structural and aesthetic qualities or even characteristics,
before its integration into any process of making. Regarded technically, its foremost resemblance with the thing
is that a joint can never be considered as a final result. It is first through the act of joining, binding, connecting or
carrying that the joint takes on the role of thing and prepares a new material, or in other words, generates
a structure. The thing is regarded as an active factor and can be seen as a catalyst for expression, innovation,
and for the 'making of things'. Things thus undergo a metamorphosis to become other things, resulting in
an identifiable or 'nameable' object. The object is thus a construct of things that only demonstrate a role or
have value when they contribute towards the object's totality.
1 Elizabeth Grosz "Notes on the Thing" in "The Pragmatist Imagination: Thinking about 'Things in the Making'"
Joan Ockman, ed. (New York: Princeton Architectural Press, 2000) 156.
1.
2.
i
3./4.
5.
i
6./7.
8.
1. "Me (Connected)", overview and detail, marbled wood, plastic tubes (dimensions variable, here 3m x 3m) 2. Various pieces, overview exhibition, upper space
3. "She (Angle)", wood, plastic tubes (98cm x 98cm)
4. Wood parts, yellow marbling/blue marbling (65cm) 5. "She (Parallel)", wood, plastic tubes (70cm x 25cm)
6. Wood part, terracotta marbling (65cm) 7. "Fraîche comme une rose (Curvature with Two Joining Parts)" styrofoam, paint, polyurethane foam (dimensions variable,
here 278cm x 287cm) 8. Various pieces, overview exhibition upper space. Photo's A. Mole.
" ME
(CONNECTED) " ,
" SHE (ANGLE) " ,
" SHE (PARALLEL) ",
&
" STICKS "
in the exhibition:
Rhododendron
with Juliette Bonneviot, Charles Broskoski, Harm van den Dorpel, Martijn Hendriks, Joel Holmberg, Marlie Mul
at W139
Amsterdam 01.2011 - 03.2011
Curated by Harm van den Dorpel.
" Horizontalities "
in the exhibition:
" THE SMART FRRRIDGE
CHILLY FORECAST
FOR INTERNET FRIDGE "
iiiiii 
with Nicolas Ceccaldi, Simon Denny, Yngve Holen, Ilja Karilampi, Morag Keil, Aids-3D, Marlie Mul
AT KUNSTVEREIN MEDIENTURM, GRAZ, 11.12.2010 – 19.2.2011
Curated by Sandro Droschl and Yngve Holen
" Horizontalities ", clay, wood, inks, transparant plastic tubing, Xerox prints. Photo's Rainer Iglar / Kunstverein Medienturm.