Sequences VI – Off Venue
Saturday April 13, Â 17.00-19.00
The Bookshop – projectspace
In keeping with Sequences’s theme, Joey Syta presents “About”, a work that focuses on how time and experience have shaped his artistic identity for Sequences off venue programming at Skaftfell – the Bookshop-projectspace. Syta believes that actively experiencing art is a necessary component of his practice, directly informing and subconsciously shaping his output.For approximately five years running he has collected press releases from exhibitions and compiles one key sentence from each to form his own on-going chronological artist profile.
“About” is an audio installation that includes a monologue of Joey reading this current profile, the familiar art-speak forming a narrative that at times contradicts itself, presenting impossible scenarios, while also simultaneously projecting an accurate portrayal. This work speaks to the inherently debilitating nature of language as a tool to describe one’s unique experience, especially in actualizing the response towards artworks.
The event is a part of Sequences VI – Off Venue, www.sequences.is
About – Joey Syta:
In his practice, Syta appears to bridge the two traditions of artmaking – a highly site-specific staging indebted to minimalism which foregrounds spatial context and the viewer´s perception, and an anti-art strain beginning with Dada that questions the fundamental nature of the art object, both materially and as a categorical term. In truth, while evoking both of these idioms, his interests lie also in more metaphysical concerns – the creation of complex pictorial spaces and a recalling of more ancient purposes for art, which simultaneously tether the viewer to concrete reality while pointing to unknowable possibilities. The artist´s fantastical aesthetic is often contradictory in nature: revealing yet enigmatic, disquieting yet encouraging. It is matter anyone can relate to and everyone can understand. His consistent refusal to settle into a signature style is reflected in a malleable practice in which divergent bodies of work display an optimistic restlessness, revealing a playful and openended engagement with materiality.