That Which We Thought We Knew: The studio practice of Jeffrey Knopf
The Art Gallery / Museum is itself a metaphor, offering glimpses of things that we otherwise may never have heard of through the chance to experience it. This is however a lens that filters our perception, one that can guide our experience, change our perceptions.
The work of Jeffrey Knopf takes the lens of digital technology and uses it not to filter our perception, but to lay bare the inadequacy of the lens, and how the gaps in our knowledge and ability are upheld rather than being filled in.
Information exists in the moment and once we lose access to one aspect of information we do not gain it in other ways. A popular phrase right now in politics goes something along the lines of ‘as the facts change so does the response” indicating that it does not serve us well falling into a locked groove, but also highlighting the inadequate nature of information in the fourth dimension.
Jeff: Yes that’s kind of what it is, my process is a hit and run technique, I can be anywhere and I might see something that grabs my attention, a shape a form that is different so like a photographer I want to capture that moment but instead of it being two dimensional it’s in the three dimensional realm. Perfection is not something I’m after either as the glitches from scanning can add something else, something unexpected.
In essence, the 3D scanning defamiliarizes the familiar, it becomes the uncanny, what we know has been blurred information is lost, yet we are able to fill in some of those gaps and find a common ground.
In some ways a gallery can be unsettling. I invigilate as a volunteer at the Castlefield Gallery in Manchester, and there are many times that I see members of the public timidly crossing the threshold to the gallery. It can be totally unnerving taking a leap into the unknown, stepping into the mind of an artist, where thoughts and ideas are conveyed, but like a puzzle they have to be pieced together by the viewer.
Whereas a museum is more accessible, it’s a place to view the past and the exotic, to encounter different cultures, there are explanations for what is on display, a justification for what these objects or artifacts are.
In the end they are just objects yet they are venerated on many levels, and that is something which interests me, when an object gains a value through emotional attachment and memories.
For example I own a stone, it’s fairly ordinary looking and could be mistaken for something picked out of the garden.This stone began it’s story on the side of Mount Fuji, it was given to my late wife as it supposedly had healing powers, from that point on my wife carried it in her pocket keeping it close believing it was worth more than just a stone because she was told it had these properties, whether it did or not is beside the point, the stone, through words and belief had gained a value.
It is interesting, the suggestion that the museum/gallery space is an external visualisation of what goes on inside the mind of the artist. The gallery as a space represents the mind, the display becomes the voice, and beyond that it is the dialogue that starts to make sense of the work and create a framework for understanding. Regardless of style or medium do you think artworks are incomplete without the dialogue stage? When an artist eventually passes away can a full interpretation of their work be possible, or is history too rewritable? Again, it is these gaps occurring that we can never quite fill in, always that blank area where information can only be guessed
Jeff. In most cases a gallery presents the artists end products; months, years, or a lifetime of work, we are not usually privy to the early stages the many iterations the artist has gone through to get to the final definitive painting or sculpture, and in doing this an ambiguity is formed, there may be a title that hints to what the artist is thinking but usually that is all.
With the accessibility to technology namely the mobile phone it has become far easier and faster for an artist to document their practice whether this is to a personal website a blog or straight to instagram. I find that I end up writing a lot of what I’m thinking when uploading an image to instagram, and yet sometimes the mystery of how a piece of art comes together is more important, it is its legend.
When I was a printmaker I would document my process as a way for others to understand how a piece of art came together, now I usually only share the end product
As for history pre-digital it was very rewritable as everything was left to guess work, pieced together from photographs or written documentation, but we now live in a time where everyone is documenting their lives and uploading directly in to the digital realm for all to access and see, it makes it easier to research and find out the answers to the questions posed.
As for gaps in information they are part of my process, yes I know what I’m presenting and what my work means to me, I try not to give too much away, as I really want the viewer to make their own story up around what is presented to them.
With this show I’m returning to some themes I had worked on with my Underworld show in Manchester, I wanted the act of walking down into the basement to feel like you were entering in to another space which was had been discovered for the first time. I remember when I was younger I had owned a book about the discovery of Tutankhamen’s tomb, the black and white photographs of the rooms fascinated me, all these objects left piled up to assist the pharaoh in his afterlife and through the Underworld, having not been seen by human eye since they were closed off.
A Show of Hands. Jeffrey Knopf
Another theme also came out of this show the idea of the Metaphorical Museum, a space which had items placed on precariously balanced glass shelves, which housed memories from the past and present, ideas and questions, a space where you have to physically slow down and think about your movements as well as engage with what is presented, you have to discover and try to fill in the gaps and make up your own narrative.
Joanne Morra hits the nail on the head when writing about Freud’s collection of objects for “inside the Freud museums”
“Objects in which the observer no longer has a vital relationship and are in the process of dying “ as with all museums the objects are taken away from their original context, placed on shelves and plinths for us to look at, but in this process they have lost something the life that they had, they are just memories of the past kept alive by audiences that may cast a glance at them from time to time.
This non threatening relationship with museums comes from childhood, in some ways we are conditioned to interact with museums and artifacts from school visits and projects, unlike galleries with their sterile white wall spaces where interaction is limited. What many forget is that most of the artifacts are art, created by craft persons and artisans from past centuries.
Museums are curated to be places of interest shelves full of items, no threatening empty spaces, all parts of the puzzle are filled in, no guess work is needed.