Anglim/Trimble is pleased to present our exhibition haiku shmaiku by Ajit Chauhan.
I like the way George Herms framed his practice; he said, “Turn everything into art. Some of the most banal, ordinary things–to make a work of art out of that was the challenge. All of everyday life that flows through me–I then sift through and try to make a visual poem.”
–Ajit Chauhan
Haiku, shmaiku, I can’t
understand the intention
Of reality (71)
–Jack Kerouac, Book of Haikus
In haiku shmaiku, Ajit Chauhan explores the malleability of reality through engravings, installations and other works. Inspired by the three gestures of haiku poetry, he establishes a presence, gives ornament to the presence, then breaks that presence in pursuit of a certain emotional state.
Engraved wooden diptychs with high gloss wall panels read both topographically and as psychological spaces. The work depicts liminal spaces: a solid turning into a liquid, a liquid turning into a gas, the most dynamic stages of materiality becoming and dissolving.
Chauhan often makes a creative gesture by destroying or defacing the material he is working with. Destroys them into uniqueness. The panels of burnt birch were made while the fires in Southern California were raging. Chauhan, having grown up in Malibu, felt the paradox of watching the devastation while making this body of work.
In the erased web series, he erases spiderwebs into found postcards, referencing Buddhist concepts like interdependent origination. He uses webs as a way to measure space in nature: their inherent latitudinal & longitudinal quality, like a globe or world map, explores the limits of our perception.
Chauhan's plexiglass engravings have a similar origin point: starting from an image which he then turns inside out, stretches, folds, lengthens, doubles, or expands. The "pliability of reality" explores the idea that reality is not fixed or immutable, but rather malleable and influenced by factors like human perception, knowledge, and actions.
The glory of love, titled after Lou Reed's Coney Island Baby, is made with surfboard making materials, foam core, stringer and colored resin. Similar to the monolith of 2001: A Space Odyssey, a towering black column, rudimental in its design and rich in symbolic connotations. Exposure to the Monolith in the movie triggers transitions in the history of human evolution. The monolith as a parallel to art viewing can serve as a catalyst for growth.
Please join us for a reception on Saturday, May 10 from 3-5 pm in our gallery at Minnesota Street Project (room 209).
The exhibition is on view through Saturday, June 28.