1/7/10
![January 7 - February 13, 2010
Lawrimore Project is pleased to announce an exhibition of work by Caleb Larsen. Originally introduced in 2008 as part of "Patch Dynamics - Six New Invasions To The Field," this is the artist's first solo exhibition with the gallery and his first since receiving his MFA from R.I.S.D. The exhibition includes work in all media - video, sculpture, photographs, text-based work, internet-based work, and drawings.
EVERYTHING ALL THE TIME RIGHT NOW
Laser cut acrylic text on wall
[ON HOLD]
The phrase came to me while trying to contend with a million things going on in my head one night while I was trying to sleep. A multitude of voices, songs, words, images, sights, and sensations were continuously flashing through my head. It is simultaneously a reflection on feeling completely saturated with media and information as well as a personal statement expressing what I want out of life.
DONOR PLAQUE
12"x24"
Donations Collected online, Polished Brass
In the spring of 2009, donations were collected via the Internet to fund the creation of a donor plaque. The amount received was to determine the size and quality of the plaque and the size of the names was determined by the amount given. The more money a person gave, the larger their name became on the plaque. The names were all scaled to the largest name - so not only would the donor's name become larger, the others would become smaller. The work existed for no other reason than to give credit to those who funded its creation.
A real time mock up was displayed on the website along with amount required to have the largest (or smallest) name. In a total of $168.00 was collected with $22.00 being the largest donation received and $0.01 being the smallest.
THE FINANCIAL FOOTPRINT OF THE ARTISTIC PRACTICE (OPEN EDITION) (2009-ONGOING)
11"x14"
The artist’s art-related credit card debt, letter press printed receipt on Stonehenge
This is a receipt to record a transaction between the artist and the collector. In this transaction the collector assumes responsibility for the totality of the artist’s credit card debt accrued as part of the studio practice. The debt is not sold, but the balance is transferred from the artist’s credit card account to that of the collector. The receipt remains, not as the work, but as the residue of the transaction.
$10,000 SCULPTURE (IN PROGRESS)
Dollar bill acceptor, collected money. Dimensions variable.
[ON HOLD]
The $10,000 Sculpture (in progress) visually consists of a standard dollar bill acceptor found in soda and candy vending machines. This device has become a symbol of self-serve retail transactions. In this instance, it is installed seamlessly into a plain white wall with no clues to inform the viewer as to the nature of the piece. Nor does it suggest what might happen if they were to insert a dollar bill. The title is the only thing that provides any insight into conceptual workings.
The functional core of this work is that it is forever ‘in progress.’ The work exists primarily at the moment of contribution by the viewer. It is a continual charity, or more cynically, a form of panhandling. It asks for money, and offers nothing (by way of direct response) in return. The money that it accepts goes into a fund with a goal of $10,000.
This piece is accompanied by a contract which outlines the rules regarding the handling of the money it collects and the continued relationship between the artist and collector. The contract stipulates that the money collected by the piece does is not to affect the market value of the work. Meaning, the money is to be considered a material of the piece, not capital. Also, since the work is meant to always be “in progress” once the work has collected the total $10,000 the amount is to be split 50/50 between the artist and collector. Like the avaricious Sisyphus, the work is reaching towards a goal, only to be returned its starting point upon reaching the goal.
A TOOL TO DECEIVE AND SLAUGHTER
Perpetual online auction, internet connection, custom programming and hardware, acrylic cube.
SOLD for $6,350 on 1/28/10. Up for auction again...
Combining Robert Morris' Box With the Sound of Its Own Making with Baudrillard's writing on the art auction this sculpture exists in eternal transactional flux. It is a physical sculpture that is perptually attempting to auction itself on eBay.
Every ten minutes the black box pings a server on the internet via the ethernet connection to check if it is for sale on the eBay. If its auction has ended or it has sold, it automatically creates a new auction of itself.
If a person buys it on eBay, the current owner is required to send it to the new owner. The new owner must then plug it into ethernet, and the cycle repeats itself.
TO VIEW THE LIVE ONLINE AUCTION VISIT:
www.atooltodeceiveandslaughter.com
THE DAY THE INTERNET TOLD US WE WOULD DIE
Sandblasted polished aluminum plaques.
Using the online "death day" calculators my wife Marci and I calculated our supposed days of demise.
THE ENTIRE CONTENTS OF THE PEN (1,604 LINEAR FOOT DRAWING)
Pilot Varsity fountain pen on 140# Canson paper. (9"x12")
[ON HOLD]
Starting with a fresh pen, I began filling in the page starting at the top left. I drew until the pen was completely empty. The totality of the pen, its entire contents has been completely expended on the page. The drawing now contains everything the pen once was.
THE SAFEST PLACE ON EARTH
18"x24"
Geotagged Digital Print.
Unique
[SOLD]
Using UN statistical data, the "safest" place on earth was located and a geotagged image from Flickr was used to represent it.
The Discontent and the Failure: DAY 0 – 28,657, 2009
23 mounted color photographs
A grid of photographs documenting 78 years of life in a tropical paradise staring out at
the open ocean.
Unique
DAY 1-28,657 and THE TWO HAPPY ONES RESOLVED TO BE NO LONGER SO, BUT ASKED TO QUIT THE COUNTRY, are the first installments in The Discontent and The Failure. Taking its name from the Thomas Edison quite “Restlessness is discontent – and discontent is the first necessity of progress. Show me a thoroughly satisfied man, and I will show you a failure,” this ongoing series reflecting on contentment and desire, longing and a feeling of being trapped in paradise and the constant urging to improve ones lot in life. Each work in this series contributes to an open ended narrative, an exchange between civilization and paradise.
The Fibonacci sequence has been used in the design and composition of art, design, music, and literature for centuries. In this piece,instead of being applied to visually formal components, the Fibonacci sequence is applied to the structuring of time and draws attention to the "sameness" and potential monotony of a lifetime lived in a 'perfect' land where very little changes over time. The time scale evident in the dates show the first 3 time measurements happening chronologically in very close proximity, and each subsequent image becomes further and further removed in time from the preceding one until there is 48 years between the last two photos.
The Discontent and the Failure: THE TWO HAPPY ONES RESOLVED TO BE NO LONGER SO, BUT ASKED TO QUIT THE COUNTRY, 2009
Note, water bottle found on the caribbean shore
Unique
Using perhaps the most desperate and optimistic form of communication, the archetypical message in bottle, a note is sent from some civilized place to the one occupying the paradise.
EVERYTHING IS FOR THE BEST, IN THIS BEST OF ALL POSSIBLE WORLDS, 2009
Color print mounted on Dibond.
35 x 56 inches
Unique
THE ORATOR, 2009
Painted concrete
1.5 x 5 x 3 inches
Unique
[SOLD]
DR NO WORDS, 2008
Edited Video, 65min
Edition of 5
In this video the artist has edited out all of the dialogue segments from the 1962 James Bond movie Dr No.
BIOGRAPHY
Caleb Larsen was born in 1979 in a small cabin without a toilet in a remote northern region of Michigan, USA. He has swam in the Arctic Ocean, played Wiffle Ball with Paul Auster, hitch-hiked through the Yukon, assembled bowling pins, worked as an email marketer, made over ten thousand cups of coffee, and built vintage racing mopeds.
Utilizing logic-based systems, Caleb Larsen traverses digital and physical spaces, identifying the existing divides and intersections between them. Akin to an explorer, Larsen writes programs and open-source codes, mining the data of familiar territories and presents the information in a way that leads to a rediscovery or reorientation of our relationship to it. Through distortion, simplification, and manipulation Larsen creates systems that critique systems revealing their social, political and psychological properties.
With the mind of an engineer and the heart of a poet, Larsen’s work is an amalgamation of exacting science, earnest sensitivity and incisive wit. Semiotics and mapping are key threads in his work. His work leverages the effects of language and mapping to translate life, media, and culture into transmedia experiences. His current areas of interest include the value of art--with new pieces that explore artist/collector, artist/dealer and artist/donor relationships--and notions of paradise and his recent relocation to the Caribbean coast of Mexico.
The title of the exhibition "Everything All The Time Right Now," is taken from a text-based work in the show and sums up the desires and ambitions of this promising young artist.
Larsen received his MFA from the Rhode Island School of Design in 2009. In 2002 he attended the Yale Norfolk summer residency program and in 2003 received his BFA in Painting from Western Michigan University. In 2008-2009 exhibited in Patch Dynamics at Lawrimore Project in Seattle, mounted a solo show at Philadelphia’s Esther M Klein gallery, showed in the Recoded exhibition in Aberdeen Scotland, and received the Award of Excellence from RISD. In addition, Larsen’s recent work has been exhibited at Ars Combinatoria in Orlando, the Los Angeles Center for Digital Art, Detroit International Video Festival, Flux Factory in New York, 911 Media Arts Center in Seattle, and Tjaden Gallery at Cornell University. The artist currently lives and works Tulum, Mexico](7_CALEB_LARSEN_files/shapeimage_1.png)
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