The 181 — Prospect Art

The 181 - Prospect Art Invitational Residency Project, Fall 2024.

WE WHO LOOK AFTER. 16-18 November 2024

The 181 gathers for three compositions throughout the Los Angeles area with Prospect Art and special guests Sage Derezin and Eloise Fairbrother. They take as their starting point one of Tom’s notes on J. B. Hartle’s Gravity: “The properties timelike ness, space likeness, world likeness, are invariant.” The question seems to return to something raised by an entry in Edward W. Lane’s Arabic-English Lexicon: Does the term “ancient without beginning” automatically imply something which has not been preceded by non-existence? (At any rate “existing to eternity without existing from eternity” is another thing entirely.)

The 181: as a collective, the 181 is interested in creating situations that generate experiential spaces which expand, contract, or reassemble as information sloshes about. Imperfect approximations of the universe as a whole. Artists, a physicist/electronic engineer/musician, a mushroom forager/rockhound, and a former linotype operator—any attempts to formalize their practice they view with distress.

The situational compositions of the 181 radically and consistently resist aesthetic categorization, reflecting an unmappable, pluralized vision. Information transmission relays/overlays that experientially communicate the possibilities of a dynamic, real-time network of creative decisions. Almost no one taking in the “complete” picture (really whoever can anyway?), and then the absurd and yet profound beauty to be created when none of this goes smoothly. Because none of it will, and again, we are interested in that. What does it mean to be where we are? The situations are always the interacting product of all of these perceptions and articulations. As artists we don’t control the situation, we help keep it alive, if only for a few exquisite minutes.

Compositions might include things as varied as a wooden sailboat (sails included) covered in 110 gallons of clay slip, a helmet that allows for live video feedback projection portals, a game of ping pong conducted on a seesaw, or a systemic structure built to investigate the idea that language might, in the end, be kept malleable by saltwater/tears. What does it mean to be where we are?

As far as they can tell, the 181 has been working together since 2007, when they found themselves gathered by the Pacific Ocean with a golden Q from Pessoa, roughly 10 yards of transparent lavender vinyl, and a broken hold on the sea’s reflection. Since then, they have appeared in places like the Arthur Craven Foundation, Milan, Italy; Stockholm Fringe Festival, Stockholm, Sweden; SPACE Gallery, Pittsburgh, PA; an alley in Eugene, OR; the ICA Philadelphia, Philadelphia, PA; transmissions beamed from Maine to Sao Paulo, Brazil; Novella Gallery, New York, NY; the National Centre for Contemporary Art, St Petersburg, Russia; Slingshot Festival, Athens, GA; Herrick Cave in Lake County, OR; High Desert Test Sites HQ at the Sky Village Swap Meet, Yucca Valley, CA; a parade of sorts with Mission Street Arts, Jemez Springs, NM; live to vinyl recordings in the heart of Pisgah National Forest, Edgemont, NC; a discussion of what might be senseless at Art Weekend Belgrade, Belgrade, Serbia; the NEA-funded “Art on the Move” The Absolute Value of Infinity on Its Side (O Dissipation) with Locust Projects in Miami, FL; and Volcanic Attitude 2023, a contemporary art and science festival in Sicily.

Currently, the collective is engaged as “Artists in Fire” residents with Confluence Lab at the University of Idaho, as well as continuing to realize reST stOP, a non-linear series of situations composed at rest stops across the continental United States.

STEP INTO THE LIGHT
Brandon Boan

Abby Donovan

Tom Hughes

Jason Rhodes