The Apartment
Projects
Kika Thorne, Elastic. Saturday, Sept. 13th, 8 to 10pm
The Apartment is very pleased to present Elastic, an exhibition by Vancouver based artist Kika Thorne. Largely know for experimental documentary film/video and collaborations with anarchist groups such as the Free School, Thorne’s recent art has evolved into highly expressive abstract forms. Through the use of bungee and metal loops (Accord, 2008) or magnets and metal mud (Magnetic Drawing, 2008) these works emerge from an ongoing material fascination with tension to produce a negotiation, an agreement and in rare cases, a resolution.
Integrated into these formal metaphors is Thorne’s conceptual commitment to an investigation of our ambient schema, here through the use of knowledge systems which evolve understated and eventual. A guiding force for this recent work are the cosmological charts of Johann Kepler. Born in 1571, in Württemberg, Germany, Kepler published Mysterium Cosmographicum, 1596, Harmonice Mundi, 1618 and the Epitome Astronomiae Copernicanae, 1618–21, which mapped the antique solar system, realized equations to calibrate planetary orbits and proposed a physical explanation of the motions of planets, namely, “magnetic arms” extending from the sun. In Song of Immanence, (2008) Thorne employs the algorithm of planetary movement as a musical score, making legible the literal harmony of the solar system. Singers may produce the drone of each planet, transforming Kepler’s notation into song. Their collective harmonies sound the years passing in space, the effect of being beyond the event horizon, inside the black hole.
Kika Thorne received her MFA from the University of Victoria, BC and has exhibited extensively including projects at Murray Guy, New York, Contemporary Art Gallery, Vancouver, Musee d’art contemporain, Montreal, Portikus, Frankfurt, and the Power Plant, Toronto.
