page number:
53 / 104
file:
Kjell Rylander Archives
document:
Backstage Antics
author:
Glenn Adamson
dd-mm-yyyy:
25-02-2012
the many elements of the piece when it was acquired by the West Norway Museum of Decorative Art. Whoever did that was an accidental artist’s assistant, playing right into Rylander’s hands.) The work speaks to the sheer, arbitrary willfulness that is necessary to any really worthwhile artistic endeavor, tacitly making the case that due diligence alone isn’t likely to produce results.
(fig. 1)
(fig. 2) Here another thought occurs: could Rylander perhaps be read as a satirist, poking fun at the situation of the academic art student? If so the satire is a gentle one. Rylander has pointed out that “the basis of all research is that it can be criticized, questioned.” If so, it seems clear that the whole construct of practice-based research needs itself to be criticized and questioned. But Rylander does this thoughtfully, probing at the edges of his situation rather than attacking it head on. It is telling that when Rylander builds a wall, it has no front, only two backs. He’s always trying to get behind things. And if this urge leads him into an infinite regress, an uncertain terrain where “practice-based research” means not the discovery of scientific knowledge, but the piling up of questions that can’t quite be answered, so much the better.