Artwork as Network: A Reconceptualization of the Work of Art and its Exhibition. As it reshapes the world we inhabit, the concept of the network has emerged as the dominant cultural paradigm across numerous fields and disciplines. Whether biological, social, political, global, communicational, or computational, networks are constituted by a decentered, distributed, multiplicitous, nonlinear system of nodes, plateaus, and edges that are endlessly interconnected and interdependent.

Networks prioritize relationships between things over the things themselves, suggesting a reconfiguring of binary elements including: digital/tactile, virtual/material, private/public, and past/present. As networks rapidly change our world, it is logical to assume that contemporary artistic practices are impacted as well. In fact, works of art are uniquely situated to discover and reveal new ways of understanding social and cultural phenomena including that of the network.

Several questions arise: How do contemporary works of art relate to network culture? Alternately, how do networks redefine our understanding of specific works of art? How, in turn, are these works expanding our understanding of the network?

KELSEY BROOKES – PSYCHEDELIC SPACE examines three years of work, four solo exhibitions by the artist and explores in depth his former background as a biochemist and his current meditative practice as a painter. Brookes’ art masterfully melds a deep knowledge of science to create bright, intensely detailed paintings that abstract drug compounds, molecules, atoms and hallucinogenic states to heighten viewers’ sensory perceptions and reactions. The opening essay Infinite Space by Montserrat College of Art Gallery Director Leonie Bradbury offers a multifaceted overview of Brookes’ impact on the current art landscape and is complemented by a variety of responses and writings from a wide range of interdisciplinary contributors.

Contemporary artist Ryan McGinness offers a visual essay that explores and contrasts two vastly different artistic processes while Red Hot Chili Peppers front man Anthony Kiedis provides a dynamic interview exchange between artist and musician. Hamilton Morris, journalist and science editor of Vice Magazine, provides insight into Kelsey Brookes’ scientific approach to his painting process, while Pennsylvania State University Information Science and Technology professor Richard M. Doyle hyper analyzes two of the artist’s seven-inch paintings. Scientific line drawings, installation images, details, fold-outs and much more make this comprehensive monograph a dazzling look into the studio practice of Kelsey Brookes.

At first glance the space resembles a studio more than a gallery: long strands of painters tape, unstretched canvas mounted to the walls, books, low resolution printed out photos and stacks of paper implies that the audience is literally “stepping into” a work in progress. Evans utilizes the gallery as a site of production, rather than an endpoint in which show a “finished” product. By revealing cultural references influential to his work such as theoretical texts, art historical documents, exhibition press releases, digital images, etc., Evans creates a web of interconnected ideas.

Leonie Bradbury, Director and Chief Curator of Montserrat Galleries describes the artist’s work as a network. “The artwork exists in a state of flux, continuously transitioning, wavering between assembled and dismantled, reconnecting and disconnecting, configuring and reconfiguring to form moments of coalescence.” The inclusion of both found objects (tape, photos, books) and his fine art paintings work together to illustrate an expansive view into Evans’ history and biography as an artist. The flux between big picture thematics and personal items within the installation creates a constant loop of informing and influence.

Exhibition Catalog Absent | Present

The multi-dimensional, multi-locational assemblages of these artists are essentially rhizomatic, each piece continuing to grow and present itself in different forms, yet remaining connected to a previous incarnation. This distribution of the work of art across multiple sites happens physically, interpretively, and subjectively. The non-centered art object is no longer time or location specific, and in each of its iterations the response to the work shifts. The sequential and rhizomatic nature of each piece allow for multiple, non-hierarchical entry points, redefining the traditional, one-to-one relationship between object and subject, artwork and viewer

The Campus Kunsthalle: A Site of Convergence. Art New England, Special Museum Summer 2013

Sarah Sze’s Random Walk-Drawing: an Encounter With The Hyperreal by Leonie Bradbury

Installation artist Sarah Sze’s site-specific works that comprise Random Walk-Drawing operate at a nexus between architecture, sculpture, and drawing. Although her materials consist almost entirely of found objects and reclaimed materials, her compositions possess a painterly formality. Like Robert Rauschenberg’s Combines,the artist questions how and when something, an object or a substance, becomes art as opposed to remaining an object. For Random Walk-Drawing found objects are combined to create a spatial engagement that extends beyond the boundaries of the gallery. The way the viewer experiences Sze’s unique system of perspective is through the visual and physical engagement of looking.