Material Voices Exhibition Catalog

Annette Cords + G Farrel Kellum October 27 - December 4, 2021

1400 N American St, Philadelphia 19122 | InLiquid.org

Annette Cords’ tapestries are sponsored by ArsVersa Kunst-Stiftung, Freiburg / Germany

Major funding for InLiquid Gallery programming has been provided by PNC Arts Alive and the Penn Treaty Special Services District.

Additional support comes from The Pennsylvania Council on the Arts, the Friends of InLiquid, and generous donors like you.

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1400 N. American Street Philadelphia, PA 19122 InLiquid.org Open: Wednesday - Saturdays Noon - 6 & By Appointment For Inquiries and Appointments, Contact (215) 235-3405

Annette Cords + G Farrel Kellum October 27 - December 4, 2021

Front Cover: Left to right, detail of Who's Hot!!, G Farrel Kellum and Give/ Take, Annette Cords

Installation View, InLiquid Gallery Foreground: Crossing #1 and Crossing #2, Dimensions variable, Dowel rod wrapped in heavy foaming enclosured with canvas as the surface, G Farrel Kellum Background, (left to right): Blooming Leaf of Mexico (red ombre), 46 x 45", Hand-woven wool and cotton, on archival inkjet printed background, Not Yet / Already, 79 x 67", Jacquard tapestry, wool, cotton, viscose, synthetic threads, Annette Cords Opposite: Detail of Not Yet/ Already, Annette Cords

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PALIMPSESTS OF IDENTITIES Material Voices - The InLiquid Gallery

by Greg Blair Identities are complex and convoluted; they can also be messy and malleable while remaining continuously in flux. A good visualization of all this complexity is the notion of the palimpsest. In the study of texts, the palimpsest is a page of writing which has had text erased or removed so that more text can be applied over top of the original.

Through this process, traces of the original text are left slightly visible as ghostly remnants on the page. If we make a correlation of the palimpsest to identity, a palimpsest is then something which is built up by layering while retaining evidence of the earlier layers. In the Material Voices exhibition at The InLiquid Gallery, both Annette Cords and G Farrell Kellum’s works contend with different identities and how they are formed as woven and sculptural palimpsests.

Through the processes of layering, concealing, and revealing of images, impressions, and text, both artists create complex visual metaphors of identity formation. Not only do Cords and Kellum explore the intertwined and amorphous nature of identities in their artistic practices, but they also construct their artworks as apparatuses that examine the relationship between singular and collective identities.

If we conceive of the interaction between singular and collective identities as an ongoing dialogue, then the exchange can be considered a form of communication. As Jean-Luc Nancy has stated, “this consciousness—or this communication—is ecstasy: which is to say that such a consciousness is never mine, but to the 6

contrary, I only have it in and through the community.”1 Both Cords and Kellum question how the collective is manifested in the singular by exploring the dialogical exchange between the singular and collective and by weaving the everyday vernacular into their artworks. Yet, their woven and sculptural investigations don’t stop there because Detail of Crossing #2 G Farrel Kellum they also draw attention to how the singular can be subsumed or erased by the dominant narratives of the collective, or as Kellum has stated: “I'm very much drawn to tags and hits as opposed to the more colorful and conceptually design forms of graffiti. To me these tags represent lost voices from the distant past as well as the present and voices not heard yet in the future.”2 The messy interplay between the singular and collective is presented in their artworks as unexpected juxtapositions of competing information, images, and mark making.

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If we can conceive of each individual as the site of the singular/ collective interchange, we can also detect a compelling overlap with the formation and understanding of the identity of place. This conceptual overlap embodies another key aspect of the pieces that have been gathered in the Material Voices exhibition. In the woven and sculptural works of Cords and Kellum, the study of identity as a palimpsest is also extended to the identity of place. This extended analysis considers how places, especially the public forum of urban streets, communicates with the city dweller. Cords has referred to this interaction as “being receptive to what presents itself.”3 Just as the individual is the site for the exchange between competing forces, so too are the streets. The streets are interstitial zones of colliding desires, histories, and identities formed through the layering and fracturing of different voices. The overlap of visual information in the works of Cords and Kellum draws direct inspiration from the eclectic visual field that one experiences while moving through the urban environment. What is seen and what is not seen, or whose voices are present or absent, form a sort of politics of aesthetics because it is through visibility (or lack thereof) that different voices have a presence within the identity of place. As Jacques Rancière has written, the significance of the visibility of a voice should not be underestimated because “it is the delimitation of… the visible and the invisible, of speech and noise, that simultaneously determines the place and the stakes of the politics as a form of experience.”4 By understanding the layering of actions and histories that occur in place, we can also realize that there are often alternative or forgotten histories and voices occurring just under the surface of the architectural facades, often left behind as barely perceptible traces.

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Installation View, InLiquid Gallery (left to right) Give/ Take, 82 x 69", Jacquard tapestry, wool, cotton, linen, viscose & synthetic threads, Annette Cords Who's Hot!!, 24 x 24 x 5", Acrylic and paint pen on canvas with collages on wood Endurance, 42 x 24", Acrylic and paint pen on canvas with collages on wood, G Farrel Kellum Background: Detail of Overshot Background 1, Annette Cords

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Cords and Kellum strive to hold onto these sometimes-forgotten snippets of histories and identities.

The dynamic process of identity formation, whether it be for people or places, remains betwixt and between any sort of settled or concretized state. This unresolved status is reflected in the conceptualization and construction of the artworks that comprise the Material Voices exhibition. For example, Cords displays some of her weavings so that the backside is visible. In doing so, Cords leaves the viewer to wonder why what is typically concealed has instead been revealed. For Cords, the artwork is not the front of the weaving or the back, but rather the evolving relationship between them which the viewer experiences in real time as they circle around the sculpture.

These works are also meant to challenge the viewer to consider both the liberation and erasure that occurs in the shaping of identities.

Cords and Kellum present incisive and purposefully open-ended questions in their works which urge the viewer to sort through the implications of formulating any answers. As one departs the exhibition space, the queries presented through the art objects are intended to linger in one’s consciousness—what is the role of the language and mark-making in the articulation of identity? How do voices become material so they are not lost into the ether? How does the metaphysical become physical? How do places communicate wth us and how do we respond? The objective of this exhibition is not to supply a clear and concise answer—simply, because there isn’t one. Instead, these artists have embraced, and brought to view, the 10

complexity of the layering, fragmenting, concealing, and revealing that constitutes the mutability of any given singularity. Nancy deems this ontological status as being “singular plural”—both at the same time, never one without the other. Through the presentation of their consciously reflective woven and sculptural works, Cords and Kellum remind us that identities are like patchworked palimpsests, beautifully muddled and knotty.

ENDNOTES 1

Jean-Luc Nancy, The

Inoperative Community, 1st ed. (Univ. of Minnesota Press, 1991). 19.

2

G Farrell Kellum, email

message to author, November 9, 2021.

3

Annette Cords in

discussion with the author, November 2021.

4

Jacques Rancière,

Emcee Scroll, 72 x 83", Media acrylic on canvas with rope and wood, G Farrel Kellum

The Politics of Aesthetics, Bloomsbury Academic, 2006, 13.

Greg Blair is an artist, writer, and educator. Originally from Red Deer, Alberta, Blair briefly attempted to be a punk rock drummer before finishing his B.F.A in Sculpture

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Installation view, InLiquid Gallery (left to right) Day for Night, 53.5 x 40", Hand-woven Jacquard tapestry, wool and cotton If, 58.5 x 40.5", Hand-woven Jacquard tapestry, wool and cotton, Annette Cords Opposite: Detail of If, Annette Cords

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Installation view, InLiquid Gallery (left to right) Conquistador, 20 x 17", Media acrylic and paint pen on canvas with cowrie shells and rope A Street Poet's Scream, 33 x 21", Media acrylic on canvas with rope , G Farrel Kellum Opposite: Detail of A Street Poet's Scream , G Farrel Kellum

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Blooming Leaf of Mexico (green ombre), 46 x 42", Hand-woven wool and cotton, on archival inkjet printed background, Annette Cords

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ANNETTE CORDS Biography Born in the North of Germany and raised in Hamburg, Annette Cords received her MFA in Painting from the University of Pennsylvania.

Recent solo exhibitions include Shape/Shifters, Project:ARTspace, New York; Breaking the Grid, Kang Contemporary, Berlin; Sideways, New York Public Library; Diamond Days, Villa Rosenthal, Jena, Germany. Her work has appeared in group shows at venues including the Queens Museum, Flux Factory, The Drawing Center, Kentler International Drawing Space, and Montreal Centre for Contemporary Textiles.

Artist Statement My work spans diverse media, from painting and weaving to installation and sculpture. Frequently, I incorporate ideas from other disciplines.

I investigate physics concepts relating to time and space through my installations and hanging sculptures. In my paintings and works on paper, I explore the possibilities of using simple steps to create complex structures. My Jacquard tapestries focus on the convergence of visual and textual languages, making connections between text and textile. In dialogue with the material culture of weaving, I examine how weaving intersects and augments developments in writing, painting, and abstraction.

Specific themes persist in my art: an interest in structures, the possibilities of mark-making, an exploration of writing systems and vernacular styles, and an inquiry into how we process and interpret visual information. By merging ideas and transforming materials, I place my work in conversation with a range of topics while inviting close reading and looking.

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Chronicle #1, 74 x 17", Media rope and canvas with wire meshing covered with acrylic on canvas , G. Farrel Kellum

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G. FARREL KELLUM Biography Glenn Kellum was born in Philadelphia, PA in 1947 and was the youngest of eleven brothers and sisters. After serving in the military for 2 years, he attended the Philadelphia College of Art (PCA), which is now The University of the Arts, and graduated with a BFA in Illustration in 1977.

Kellum had his first exhibition at the University of Pennsylvania upon graduating from the university. He has been represented by the Sandy Webster Gallery and Art Jazz Gallery. Kellum has also been part of several prominent group exhibitions including those at the Delaware Contemporary and the Woodmere Museum.

Artist Statement This series of work by G. Kellum challenges the rear view perspective of artistic expression and dives into the world of urban aesthetics, as we know it. It also explores the possibilities present in spiritual and psychological practices. Look then, look again. As we move toward the future the images grow more familiar with each truth they unveil.

This then becomes a series that grows with time.

What first appears as a contemporary signpost for modern urban life is actually an archeological dig into our perceptions about these polychromatic structures that are presented by Glen’s work. Do we see the African designs interwoven into the fabric of this series? Therein lies the complexity of this work. Those who have experienced this journey into cultural perception will recognize these references while others will experience something more visual. These concepts are applied through the use of bold colors and marks in these three-dimensional and twodimensional forms. His use of mixed media and materials plays into more ideas of passage and a broken heritage in the work.

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InLiquid InLiquid is a 501 (c)(3) nonprofit organization committed to creating opportunities and exposure for visual artists and works with more than 280 artists and designers. It serves as a free, online public hub for arts information in the Philadelphia area.

Find out more at www.inliquid.org.

All rotational artworks are available for purchase. Inquiries for purchases can be directed to Clare Finin at clare@inliquid.org.

Opposite: Detail of Moment #3, 24 x 24, Media acrylic and paint pen on canvas and wood , G Farrel Kellum Back Cover: Left to right, section of Give/ Take, Annette Cords and Who's Hot!!, G Farrel Kellum

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