Kathy Temin
White Gar­den Inter­ven­tion (ASG)

Kathy Temin’s White Gar­den Inter­ven­tion (ASG), 2018 is both famil­iar and strange. The work focus­es on absence through its very par­tic­u­lar place­ment in the gallery. Inter­rupt­ing the entry it ren­ders the gallery beyond as a void, con­tin­u­ing Temin’s long­stand­ing prac­tice of exhibit­ing alter­na­tive rep­re­sen­ta­tions of remem­brance and loss in this space, includ­ing My Mon­u­ment: Black Cube, 2009, Memo­r­i­al Gar­dens, 2012 and Pet Ceme­tery, 2014.

Restrict­ing the door­way, White Gar­den Inter­ven­tion (ASG) is reflex­ive in nature invert­ing the neg­a­tive archi­tec­tur­al space of the gallery so that it becomes an object. This tran­si­tion­al home for the work alludes to the even­tu­al pos­i­tive occu­pa­tion by the sculp­ture in anoth­er loca­tion, sig­nalling a tran­si­tion from this ephemer­al occu­pa­tion to the per­ma­nence of the monument.

Con­tin­u­ing Temin’s inter­est in the gar­den and the memo­r­i­al, White Gar­den Inter­ven­tion (ASG), 2018 recon­fig­ures expec­ta­tions of the mon­u­ment. The work allows dif­fer­ent expe­ri­ences for remem­brance, first­ly through an object that is realised through a labour inten­sive and repet­i­tive sewn process and sec­ond­ly through an absence of any­thing inside the gallery.

Oth­er artists have used walk­ways or entry into spaces to gen­er­ate works, Daniel Buren placed a paint­ing over the entry to his first com­mer­cial gallery exhi­bi­tion in France in the 1960s, Mari­na Abro­movitch and Ulay stood naked, one either side of the door­way, for their per­for­ma­tive work Impon­der­abil­ia, 1977 and Unti­tled, 1969. Gio­van­ni Ansel­mo blocked the door­way with­in a gallery with stones, a work that was repeat­ed in dif­fer­ent contexts.

The aim is for the gallery to be expe­ri­enced anew, the func­tion of the object is seen in a dif­fer­ent way, to gen­er­ate new rela­tion­ships and expe­ri­ences with both the work, its mate­ri­al­i­ty and the space it occu­pies. The organ­ic shapes of White Gar­den Inter­ven­tion (ASG) are a metaphor for abstract­ed gar­dens and bod­i­ly forms. Fash­ioned in Temin’s sig­na­ture syn­thet­ic fur, the gar­den is mut­ed to stark white, reveal­ing the tex­tur­al and sur­face dis­par­i­ties between each sec­tion. This choice of medi­um sub­verts the mon­u­men­tal nature of the work and aligns the form with notions of domes­tic­i­ty and child-like play­ful­ness. Con­jur­ing the imagery of soft toys to elic­it a sense of sen­ti­men­tal­ly and exag­ger­at­ed human response, the mate­ri­al­i­ty and gen­er­a­tive ideas of White Gar­den Inter­ven­tion (ASG) are brought togeth­er to evoke a response to pri­vate and col­lec­tive sites of art his­to­ry and memory.