Frank Turek's Boxed Assemblages
For the past fifteen years I've been working exclusively in the medium of assemblage. Originally, I was inspired by late 19th century optical devices such as kinetiscopes, heliotropes, dioramas and peep shows. These are generally considered pre-cinema devices in their relation to the development of the movies, but for me they became a method of physically bringing the viewer in close. A way to capture the viewers' gaze and attention by forcing them to come up to within inches of a piece in order to get the full effect of a piece. And so, my earliest attempts were viewing boxes lit internally to allow the viewer a peepshow view of the contents. A devoted interest in the dada and surrealists' use of collage and "found" objects gave me the ideas for the contents of these boxes. Originally I used book and magazine texts and illustrations as well as small pieces of trash found in the street. I then began collecting vintage books and magazines, game pieces, and a variety of old and worn odds and ends from flea markets which provided me an accumulation of source material. With these acquisitions my work started to develop a more open "shadow box" format where I often used cigar boxes and desk drawers as the containers of these assemblages. Parallel to the development of my artwork was the blossoming of my own philosophic thought. I was studying the modern hermeneutic thought of Heidegger and Hans-Georg Gadamer, who felt that language was the essence of our being and through a better understanding of our relation to language we can better understand ourselves. What most intrigued me about their thought was that they emphasized that poetry rather than analytic discourse held the truths about language. Relating this to my visual art I found that I could use the misplaced and forgotten pieces of our material culture as a visual poetry to comment upon our own contemporary state of being. My assemblages provided me a method towards a visual philosophy, or in Gadamer's terms a visual hermeneutics. A sense of modern and postmodern philosophic thought has helped lead me to collage as a basis for my assemblages. I use assorted objects in my work and each has a power all its own, demanding the attention a central object deserves. But the underpinning or backdrop to these objects, and my main focus, is how the printed paper elements set up the themes and dialogue of a piece. Most if not all of the surfaces of my boxed assemblages (inside and out) are covered with collaged pages from vintage books and magazines, maps and comics, etc. The oddness of past items for me becomes a useful tool for commenting on the present day. It's removed enough so that we can sometimes laugh at it, but we also recognize it as part of our collective culture, so we listen to it with a certain reverence. Placing these images and text in my assemblages where they can resonate off of each other creates a kind of micro-theater full of humor, pathos and reflection.
(Written as the introduction to a retrospective of my work at ubu studio art gallery in December of 2004)
Paragenetic Interpolations
The term paragenetic comes from geology. Simply defined it is rock created when two or more different minerals are pressed close together under geological pressure. (The prefix para indicates beside or together and the root of genetic is to form or become.) So in this sense all assemblage art by its nature is paragenetic in that assemblage is essentially a collection of distinctive parts brought together to form a new singular form.
To interpolate is to insert between or among others. In math, interpolate is more specifically defined: to insert a term into a series by estimating it or calculating it from surrounding known values. Interpolation is a give and take action where in order to interject something you must first interpret the surroundings, much akin to the way we speak and use words in natural conversation. It could also describe the internal process of viewing art.
The Paragenetic Interpolations, therefore, are not objects per se but more of a process. The interpolation becomes an interpolation when you, the viewer, insert yourself, your thoughts, amongst the parts and start making connections and formulations. The structure and design of these pieces are meant to provoke you into this process.
In the spirit of Oulipo the Paragenetic Interpolations are a distillation of my art of assemblage.
Here are some questions that will bring you back to the work:
Does it spoil a magic trick when you know how it is done?
When is an object not an object?
What is a narrative?
Is meaning exponential?
Do you seek closure?
Do answers help you or blind you?
Would you prefer to be free or happy?
Did you spend more time reading this than viewing the artwork?
Frank R. Turek
October 2006
A dadasoph speaks.
Recently, someone, having not seen my work, asked me what it was about. I found myself at a loss to describe it on the spot. I think I came up with a somewhat lame response, something about commenting on our culture, which is certainly true though so general as to be vague. As I think of what my stumbling block in this situation was, I realize now that before I can get to topical things about which my work is about , I must first sketch out the framework that manages to reflect and contain these topics.
The Berlin artists that helped develop dada as a strategy of social commentary (often infused with humor) and in the process invented photo collage, have in part inspired me to adopt their approach to art. That is, to use pieces of culture in order to comment on the culture as a whole. Dadaist, Raoul Hausmann (the original dadasoph) more or less described this procedure in 1920 and later Walter Benjamin sought out a philosophical approach with a similar basis. I've always found these methods or strategies more apropos to our times than the “traditional” arts. As a visual art this strategy is perhaps more akin to poetry when poets push language and in the process comment on the language's history, usage, etc. So, I'm commenting on culture... now I guess the question is: “well, what is the nature of these comments?”.
This is where I break company with most of the dadaists who would find the culture meaningless and absurd and not worthy of comment or comment only in the form of disassembly. The dadaist usually sees the dominant culture as bourgeois, tradition ridden and oppressive to the point of stultifying contrary thought. This oppressive tradition is seen as arbitrary in it’s adoption of a particular set of meanings, hence, absurd and ultimately meaningless. While this point of view has certain merits as a strategy, the act of producing new commentary on the oppressions of the past is itself rendered pointless. So, here I take my cues from Hans-Georg Gadamer. Hermeneutics teaches us that there has to be a spark buried somewhere in the past of a culture gone awry otherwise how could we even come up with the thoughts to form any questions about it? So, with the strategy of selecting these “meaningless” images, I try to distill the abundance of meanings held within, in and through their consequent rearranging. Thus the ultimate commentary on a culture that attempts to steer us down a narrow path is to not only uproot its perceived singular meaning (the dada strategy) but also to make light of the wide open fields on all sides and the fact that the “path” is indeed a part of its surroundings (hermeneutics). So, is my work “about” this “ultimate commentary” or is there not something more specific going on here?
I've made attempts in the past to summarize the nature of my topics but such attempts, on my part, pale by comparison to the work itself. The actual art piece is, after all , how I've managed to best express a particular issue. If you are seeking an accompaniment to my visual work I would recommend reading Gadamer’s Reason in the Age of Science or Mumford’s Pentagon or Power for the topic of living in a technopoly; or on the subject of soul/beauty and its mystical grounding listen to the works of Messiaen, Scriabin and Sun Ra, the films of the Brothers Quay and the writings of Tarkovsky; and the notion of play/humor as a serious pursuit there is Ernst’s collages, Jarry’s books and John Cage’s work.
This list of work parallels what my work is most “about” in that these are example of a kinship of thought and hence give better description to my work than I can give through a verbal account.
F Turek. - Nov. 2000
Statement from the exhibit "Recombined Parts" at Local 188 art gallery in Portland Maine in November of 2000.