Glenn Kaino's works are amalgamations of odd parts. Like a mad scientist at work, he incorporates computer science, comics, digital media, maps and magic into a glittering culture-cluster.
His newest exhibition, entitled 'Bring Me the Hands of Piri Reis,' focuses on cartographic systems as means of producing and preserving knowledge. To confuse the map and the territory is to confuse an object and its representation, a representation which is abstracted and manipulated until it becomes a full, pretty picture. Kind of like a work of art. Kind of like a work of magic.
Kaino takes the curious logic of cartography and expands it past geography, touching on the many mysterious terrains which are illuminated, dissected and disseminated as compact and logical tidbits of knowledge. The practice of mapping codes the stuff of our daily lives.
Kaino's experience practicing magic urged him to plant secret components into his works to resist rigid logic, revealing the fragile power relationships in play between maps, logic and truth. Accompany Kaino on a journey through the known, the unknown and the unknown that we claim to know. Magic and mastery fight over the grounds you take for granted in this complex and playful exhibition.
Glenn Kaino's work will show at Honor Fraser Gallery until February 18.
