Joel Kyak

The Knifeshop

by Maya Lujan

 

There's something undoubtedly serious and menacing about a show constructed around the tool called a knife. There is the clear statement that fundamentally, one really only needs a knife in any given scenario when self-preservation is at stake. This concept presents a certain level of potential, but also of course, violence; destruction and renewal, order and chaos, essentially, entropy. In Kyack's work, there is the retention of an abstracted living entity mimetic of often-unseen-always-functioning design systems.  In thermodynamics, the internal energy of a given system is the expected amount of information needed to exactly specify the state of the system, given what is known about the system. This is critical knowledge for a living, surviving human animal. To a certain degree, the installation is a total apparatus built with a variable amount of expectation within a defined internal system regarding the current market or the undefined external system of the art market and what it means to subsist within it. Joel's approach is to become a sort of street performer wherein the work may collapse, break down and be relocated. It remains self-contained while maintaining liberal and fluid qualities. 

The installation presents a mix of a functional pseudo wood shop, including; New Hampshire license plates, a mailbox, blades, ping-pong balls, insulation sheet foam, an ice hockey stick, crank straps, forging hammers, blacksmith gloves, blades, and a DVD player, to name a few. The show is loaded with the aesthetics of the mid-west or a Steelers/punk/lumberjack/construction worker vernacular. The Knife Shop plays with the concept of switching (no pun intended) or a substitution as a method of change and development in that there is a switching of materials and cultures while the concept remains the same. In other words, the substitution of a wooden spear for a chiseled stone spear, a fish bone to a sewing needle made of a fine tooth with a hole carved into it. A saws-all to a chop saw, a switchblade to a Bowie knife. Meaning: constant improvement until the system in itself becomes apparent and there is a loss of control over the conditions that were set for the original system, and the preservation of the form in itself, becomes the function. Besides, any skilled craftsman demands perfection of their tools, which means not only tools of good materials and workmanship, but also an enormous selection as seen in the knives. 

In the video, a gloved hand holds a knife steadily in the passenger window as the vehicle continues along in a suburban neighborhood on a cold, clear autumn morning. The placement of the blade immediately creates a horizontal division that, in effect, cuts houses in half without physically doing it, lops off the tops of trees and kills (in play) entire families... providing a relevant social commentary about the results of the Western horizontal expanse and state of mind, and it's inherent tendency to obliterate natural systems for the provision of more quantities, faster speeds and efficiency. This video seems to take it's point of origination from Gorda Matta Clark's Building cuts, "Splitting Series", I974, in which he very poignantly dealt with the psycho-socio dynamics of the nuclear family by literally splitting open suburban homes, therefore violently revealing the inner guts and psychic life of the typical American.

Joel shares grounding points with the artists John Bock, Bruce Conner and Jessica Stockholder. Similar to Bock's performative work, there is a prop-like quality in the installation comparable to a backdrop of an 80's horror flick; however, the "pre" activated sculpture performs in lieu of Joel. Due to this, the materials retain a sense of vitality, rather than being leftover remnants from an event. Kyack's work is reminiscent of the arrangements of Connor in that the show is compiled from bits and pieces of everyday human activity to produce a kinetic self-operating mechanism. Also, there is the maintenance of internal symbologies and treatment of materials analogous to Stockholder.

Kyack also employs his sense of humor consistently starting with the butchered foamcore mono that greets the audience as they enter the door.  The Costco beer container provides a visceral impact as it pumps and drives the blood, or kool-aid- and maintains the pulse of the carcass as seen in a paper mache arm sculpture with an empty cage. One can see the indication that the system- if the sculpture is like a body- has illness. If you see blood in your urine; you know something is terribly wrong. You may very well have to go under the knife.