Things as They Appear to Be

Part III of the -KOM-PRI-HEN-SUH-BUHL installation images.

Part II of the installation images from IN-KOM-PRI-HEN-SUH-BUHL.

Installation views of IN-KOM-PRI-HEN-SUH-BUHL.

Many of these pieces contain peep holes which allow a viewer to see inside of the crates. The basic idea of these works is to manipulate the notion of what art objects are or can be to explore the broader concept of the interplay between our perception and reason; both tools which generate knowledge. The confrontation of crates, which are tangentially related to art objects by their transport, as art objects in and of themselves causes one to rethink what an art object can be, thus using expectation and reason to thwart perception. Many of these crates also contain peep holes which function as view ports to their interior. The reality of these internal views is dissonant with that of the exterior of the crate as well as with a viewer’s expectations. In this way the fantastic possibilities of the mind are laid out though playful interaction between one’s reason, expectation, and perception.

IN-KOM-PRI-HEN-SUH-BUHL statement

Art is a contemporary practice which operates uniquely in the realm of ideas or all things imaginable to the human mind. It is a question driven practice and not a means to an end but rather an end in itself because art can create possibilities which are otherwise unimaginable for their frivolity or absurdity. In this sense art is the practice of an important part of the larger realm of reason.

Questions are a driving force behind all endeavor; questions that seem unanswerable. Never contented with things as they are or things as they appear, the mind, a powerful creator, gatherer, filter and organizer of information, strives for deep explanation. Contradictions abound in the balance between the mind’s narratives, constructed and shared, and that which is perceptible. Tempered by the desire for a sensibly predictable world; the mind’s imagination is a tool which can pry open doors to new means of understanding or construct for itself unbreachable barriers to reality. Past experiences influence the rational faculty, which in turn influences perception, so new experiences obscured by the anticipated can be easily disregarded. Yet minute details masked by the mundane can be the threshold to entirely new ways of thinking.

The sum of experience and knowledge includes all concepts from those nearly universal in understanding to those only understood by a fraction of all people, incomprehensible to the rest, and constituted in reconciliation of perception and reason retarded by their interplay. As a result, what you see is not always what you get. What is real can be preferable to how things appear, and knowledge today is that which was unintelligible yesterday. Curiosity, imagination, and often absurdity are vehicles to our understanding; their direction is random or at best under the guide of a faulty compass.