In September 2010, Los Angeles-based artist Glenn Kaino returned quite literally from his two-year break with a new bag of tricks. Although he was best known for his sculptural work, Kaino began to show performance works often informed by the rigorous training he received in magic. In December of 2011, Kaino staged a performance in collaboration with the Bass Museum of Art, Art Public and hundreds of volunteers. The piece, which involved levitating a large sculptural platform modeled after the iconic attractions of the 1939 New York World’s Fair for the duration of Art Basel Miami Beach, was not only staged as a protest, but also an exploration in collective movement.
Kaino’s latest exhibition “Bring Me the Hands of Piri Reis,” and his first solo show with Honor Fraser, revisits themes of illusion and mass motion, but pulls from his range of his experience with animation, illustration and digital media technology. Like his Bass Museum piece, Kaino’s work speaks on multiple levels across several fields. In fact, when asked about his artistic influences in the Art Newspaper, he cited Duchamp: “who went from painter to sculptor to chess player— you could never identify him.” The show uses various media—ranging from photography, installation, cast metal sculpture to drawing and pays homage to the life of Piri Reis, a 16th century Turkish cartographer and admiral, most famous for creating some of the earliest world maps and atlases.
“Bring me the Hands of Piri Reis” is on view at Honor Fraser (2622 S. LA Cienega Blvd., Los Angeles) until Februrary 18. See Honor Fraser on Paddle8’s ALAC page.