mapping Archives

Calum Craik “Leisure”

Calum Craik
Leisure [2013]
Space Blanket, bowling ball, image of Californian swimming pool, steel
Sextant, curated by Marco Antonini
Nurture Art, Brooklyn [link]

A cartography of sociologic desire, Craik’s ludicrous simulacra ¹earth floats in orbit around a radiant golden mountain²: mythic wealth manifested as hollow skin³ ⁴ ⁵. The heavy hobbyist planet eclipses an idealized cliché of personal oceans, darkening the American dream⁶. The game sphere condescending to a postcard attenuates an episteme of juvenile vapidity, shallowness a parody of nihilism.⁷.

Leisure indeed: the surreal map⁸, a nouveau fabled teleology⁹ ¹⁰, amplifies labor for the consumer: discernment is a cultural effort¹¹ ¹². The key/legend is a vague context pointing at content,¹³ inferring vast social aptitude only attainable through swaths of leisure labor¹⁴.

~Ryder Richards
images courtesy of Nurture Art

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Sean P Miller
Cascade
Pariah, Dallas [link]
June 5 – June 26

Experiencing Sean Miller’s primordial, multi-media installation is something like being inside of a high-discharge eruption of molten earth in slow motion. Multiple forms of media are layered like virtual paint, creating new shapes and sounds that are scrumptiously loud, capacious in execution and lushly rendered. The resulting “sculpted architectonic structures” (as the artist defines his work) convey a sense of wonder and hope – the Earth will indeed transform and resurrect, surviving humanity’s folly. In places, Cascade might seem monotonous, but early in his career Miller’s intoxicating undulations of technology tease forth a future promise: the evolution of a young artist.

~ Janeil Engelstad
images courtesy of Pariah

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