Suspended Gravity: Flights of Fancy，The Universe of Ed Pien and Karin van Dam

Flights of Fancy
The Universe of Ed Pien and Karin van Dam

The title “suspended gravity” is one that cannot fail to stimulate the imagination. On a basic level, we can view it as a suspension of the natural laws — those which cause objects to return to the earth after being launched into the air — a cheeky challenge to the adage “What goes up must come down.” It’s an idea which is pregnant with possibility. What happens when things do not come down, but merely pause like a freeze-frame or hang empty like the rest in a piece of music? It is this state of “in-between-ness” that acts as a potent metaphor for our current urban condition. Living in cities in a globalized world we are constantly in a state of suspension — on the move, from one apartment to another, from one neighborhood to another, moving to a different city or even country. We are beings in a state of perpetual motion — feet high off the ground.

In fact the collaboration between the two artists is emblematic of this mutable sense of time, space and place. Ed Pien, was born in Taiwan but is based in Toronto; Karin van Dam is based in Amsterdam. The two met while on a residency program in France, and since that time, they have participated in a number of exhibitions together in various different countries.

Collaborating over email and skype they worked to create a series of works which cross-reference each other and create interconnected webs of meaning between existing bodies of work and newly created works which were combined into a site-specific installation.

Their work makes for a natural fit in that both use the motif of webs, nets, tendrils and vines — things that hold and encompass other objects but also things which swing and dangle and struggle to get free from the whole. Ed Pien’s paper cuts for instance depict men and women suspended in a series of ropes. In “Enchanted,” the picture plane is crisscrossed with a series of webs which could just as easily be the veins of a tree or arteries of human skin or some other structure used to transport vital fluids. It is clear that they create some kind of net or network upon which human life can survive.

Within these webs reside lithe athletic women: one stands casually leaning against the ropes, another sits with her back arched breasts forward, while another launches herself into a bridge with a thick mane of hair thrown wildly back. There is something seductive in their poses, but also something kind of empowering in the way they use their bodies. We see the same kind of confidence the figures in “Suspend 3” and “Luft” — the German xx word for air or breath. Amongst the webs in “Luft” is a series of rings which adds to the element of performance in these works — we can almost imagine the crowds of people below gazing up in awe at their gravity defying ballet. Meanwhile other works such as “Enchanted” and “Daredevils” incorporate other props such as sandbags. This combination of ropes and sandbags immediately conjures up ideas of the theatre where sandbags are used in the rigging process to raise and lower sets and their presence is reflected in the collaborative installation “Suspended Gravity” 2013 produced specially for this exhibition.

The installation features the xx sculptural works of Karin van Dam suspended on ropes from the ceiling and anchored to the ground with black sandbags designed by Ed Pien. The sandbags provide not only a visual tension but also a structural element to the installation a counterbalance which is necessary to hold the works at a certain height.

Their somewhat stocky shapes mimic the forms of the “cocoon” like knitted forms which hang from the ceiling. But whereas van Dam’s cocoons, have a wispy nature like silken seed pods with tendrils hanging down, the sandbags have a solidness, their practical coverings encasing something weighty and functional in contrast to van Dam’s other fantastical creatures — creations composed of doughnut-shaped boat fenders and inverted Chinese oil umbrellas wrapped in a spidery black fabric trim. The fenders (which are used to protect boats from bumping into docks) plastic circles filled with air — give a sense of buoyancy to the piece — so that the works look almost as if they are floating on water. Van Dam has been using boating materials in her work since 2002 and the fenders combined with the “name of other boating materials anchor line buffer 缆绳缓冲器” and the ropes give us a sense of both floating and freedom but also of mooring and anchoring.

While Pien’s performance takes place in the air, van Dam’s could take place as easily in the depths of the ocean. There is something about the tendrils of black hanging of the spokes of her umbrellas that look like jellyfish or seaweed and the small cocoons could easily be mistaken for some kind of Proterozoic sea creature. What’s so fascinating about van Dam’s work is the combination of an organic almost haphazard aesthetic with something man-made and clinical. The inclusion of objects such as plastic ties and gearshift boots (the covering that goes over a gear shift) lends ads an almost sci-fi element to her work.

Adding to the sense of weightlessness are the oval cylinders of Ed Pien. Black and white discs are given a patina of time by a fine application of sand paper and a light splashing of ink/paint? They hang in the space and turn almost imperceptibly with the currents of air — helping the viewer to feel the space in a more palpable manner. Other discs placed on the wall help create the feeling that the wall is in fact an illusion and that the installation extends beyond the borders of the cement into the hallway.

Pien’s flat and sober circles also contribute an aura of simplicity to the installation — most enchanting perhaps are the white ones which seem to almost blend into the wall or hang in space barely visible in the bright glare of the sunlight. There is something ethereal about their presence.

It’s an installation which is both organic in the sense of marine life, and nautical, but at the same time there is something very architectural in the way it is all assembled. Complementing this installation is a series of untitled drawings by van Dam which act preparatory or inspirational sketches. These works feature yurt-like forms which could double as haystacks or spaceships. Van Dam had titled an earlier drawing in the series “Tentenkamp” and they do indeed seem like a kind of nomad camp perhaps during some kind of horse-riding festival. There is certainly movement — a frenzied character to the tents — which seem not only themselves to be levitating but to have objects which are hovering and rotating around them. Some works incorporate found objects such as rope, metal rings and shuttlecocks and feature three dimensional pop-up elements. It’s almost as if someone were to make an architectural preparatory sketch for an event such as Burning Man — a vision of a set of structures which enable fluid movement, their circular nature and porous walls allowing for intermingling — in other words a perfectly interconnected city.

We see this concept revisited in her work “Travelling Cities Annos,” 2013 which first began as a project at the xx museum in the Netherlands where van Dam worked with technicians on industrial knitting machines to design cocoon-like giant black forms, knit in intricate patterns of single and double thread mohair.

These xx meter long stocking shaped forms are then expanded through the use of XX type of balloons. Without the balloons these forms look like shriveled black snakes, but the insertion of the balloons enacts a kind of magic whereby the patterns of the wool come out in stark relief — taut against the surface of the balloon. Van Dam also inserts a number of bamboo sticks which cause the cocoon to protrude in various different directions and create a sense of violence or tension as the bamboo strain against the fine fibers of the mohair.

There is also something very remarkable in how they are installed in the gallery — attached to the wall and buttressed by bamboo poles and suspended by string. Van Dam takes great inspiration from the cities she works in and was particularly inspired by Shanghai’s own balletic brand of urban chaos. She perused local construction markets in search of appropriate materials and though she discovered some very interesting finds, returned to her original idea of using bamboo which has a prominent role in China’s construction industry. She and Pien then worked together to test out different arrangements first hanging the works in the center of the ceiling, then shifting them to the sides of the wall and then finally securing some of the smaller pieces with thick bamboo poles and placing other free-standing bamboo poles in amongst the cocoons. The result is something of a hybrid between bamboo grove, silk worm plantation and construction site as the material of bamboo is so often associated with the idea of building and scaffolding.

The installation is meant to be entered into and by using the smallest space of the gallery, the artists have created a space somewhat similar to a traditional Chinese garden, with pathways which allow the viewer a great number of interesting views as they turn and slowly adjust their perspective. At the same time, the cocoon-like pods evoke a futuristic city of sorts, where humans are freed from the limits of square geometry and roads. There is an interesting metaphor to be had in this idea of a cocoon, something mothering and embracing, — a community which nurtures one until they are mature enough to fly on their own.

Van Dam’s womb like structures are juxtaposed with Pien’s free-floating women a few meters away. Black silhouettes of figures — very similar to those seen in the paper cuts — dangle precariously from the strings of one of van Dam’s oil umbrella’s wrapped in mohair. This piece was created specially for the show and is a nice summation of the idea of a city as a community: a place which provides an umbrella of shelter and safety — but at the same time access to adventure —for the insatiable individual who strays from the safe, the warm and the dry in search of self actualization, novelty and inspiration. Thankfully most cities are complex and dynamic enough organisms to be nets which can catch us when we fall but are not binding enough to trap us and prevent us from realizing our human potential. It may be frightening to be so high up in the air, but exhilarating at the same time — I think most of us would agree it’s a risk worth taking in order to enjoy a greater depth of human experience.