The Knitting of Time

“Poetry returns like dawn and dusk.”
“La poesia vuelve como la aurora y el ocaso.”
Jorge Luis Borges

The Knitting of Time is an exhibition that explores the idea of phenomenology, repetition, and body imagery. This exhibit is created by Distill, a collective formed by seven contemporary artists located in different cities throughout the world. Their art ranges from two-dimensional objects to sculptural pieces, and installations.

The idea of repetition resonates in Jorge Luis Borges’ verse in Arte Poetica: “Poetry returns like dawn and dusk.” Here, Borges emphasizes that poetry is endlessly retroactive. Similarly, Maurice Merleau-Ponty’s idea of habit can be linked to the idea of repetition. Merleau-Ponty uses habit as synonymous with “skill.” In Phenomenology of Perception , he advocates the connection between body and mind. For him, the mind is contingent on the body. An example of this occurs when learning to dance: the repetition of steps eventually becomes automatic. The body retraces the steps with a possibility for improvisation Just as in poetry, the artists in Distill recreate the artistic endeavor, repeating similar imagery and emotion. As a cycle of repetition, the time of creation arises at the moment of revelation when the artists improvise.

In Untitled, Amy Barillaro Visockis’ orange and pink concentric squares are formed by pieces of straws. The pyramidal construction is reminiscent of the Borgesian labyrinth -–a path that might bring to any ending. In Green and Pink Checks, straw clusters arranged in multiples of nine are rendered in a floral pattern. In Pinstripe, a layer of green and turquoise straw pieces emphasizes a serpentine quality. The artist expands on repetition through the multiplicity of labyrinthine forms, endlessly repetitive.

In Target II, Ann Chuchvara created small round shapes that recall orifices and breasts. The plastic with its baby pink reflections seems to float like sea foam. According to the artist, “It is through the use of materials that I am able to evoke bodily sensation.” Made out of mylar and eyelets, Fall is an intertwined, blooming foliage. Three vines falling from the ceiling project shadows on the adjacent wall. The stenciled, ceaseless, sinuous shapes attest to the artist’s preoccupation to build the work. Labor intensive, these cuts serve cumulatively as witnesses to the passage of time.

Tsehai Johnson’s Sample #5, porcelain white brackets contrast with an orange hairy ball. Resembling mimosa flowers, they are also akin to fallopian tubes. A trellis in Sample #6 looks like a doll’s arms and legs. In Field #4, intestinal forms hug their tentacles over contiguous walls. Echoing Chuchvara’s plant life, the vine-like growths resemble over-sized flower’s stamens. Johnson conflates the visceral quality of the body with the anthropomorphic shapes of flora.

As part of a sculptural series Rope Memory Julie Poitras Santos creates in Refrain a rope represented in paper and rubber. The hanging rope provokes an eerie feeling–-a meditation on death. The black superimposed, cut-out shapes are entangled. The serpentine quality of these elliptical shapes is reminiscent of Visockis’ works. The repetitive layering emphasizes a systematic approach, ad infinitum. In Return, she makes a rubber web, twisting like the Los Angeles freeways.

With a daily accumulation of shredded newspaper pieces in Time-space, Hrafnhildur Sugyrdardottir addresses the space-time continuum. Witch’s Tit, a circular knitted piece with a droopy nipple, alludes to the quintessential breast. White daisies populate the green carpet. Fusing the recurrent floral and body imagery, they are evocative of breasts. In this work, Sugyrdardottir alludes to a Pete Seeger’s song called Where have all the flowers gone? This is an homage to the dead of the present day war in Iraq.

For Go with the Flow, Patricia Tinajero-Baker knitted rotating circles with tape inside VHS cassettes tied to white strings. According to Tinajero-Baker, this work is inspired by the image of the timeless ripple. It serves as a metaphor for human connection. As part of the Series Landscraps and Scrapscapes, Skate Race is an installation of wooden poles with colorful crocheted tops. Above, cups and sombreros adhere to the wall. Like a palisade defining boundaries, it comments on the land encroachment in the Wild West.

Jacha Yoo’s work Untitled utilizes representations of stuffed animals like Winnie the Poo and Felix the Cat. These awaken in the viewer an odd feeling. The linearity of the box contrasts with the emptiness of the stuffed toys, but what actually heightens the ominous feeling are the cut ears attached to the box’s bottom. Removed ears allude to a feeling of alienation. Yoo’s work points to how memories of outgrown childhood dreams resurface.

The Knitting of Time demonstrates a sophisticated comment on time and repetition. Although the artists are working on this phenomenological concern, the outcome is eclectic, and inspirational. A collaboration of this kind could only be possible today due to the advances in communication in this global age. This exhibit reflects a Borgesian approach in which the different avenues taken have made possible another artistic reality.