The Wayland Rudd Collection, 2014
A group of artifacts under consideration for archival preservation to document the ‘russian decade’ of artist, kara lynch.
artifacts include: sktechbooks, russian tetrad/journals, editing logbooks, photographs, miscellaneous kitch objects.
Archivist note: the contents of ‘Box no. 1 Russian Journal’ and the video ‘moscow journal’ provide a glimpse into a “figurative” period for the artist. Whether this characterizes the artist’s “russian decade” fully or, demonstrates a kind of socialist ideal/realism, remains to be theorized. The curatorial decisions here are inspired by Alexandr Deineka’s drawings of Blacks in New York and Philadelphia during his 1935 visit to the U.S. accompanying the exhibition: ‘The Art of Soviet Russia’
captions:
Moscow Journal, 26min digital video 1994/2014
Doubling over, redaction, and speculation are applied to a video meditation on race and Russia.
Produced hastily as a sample for a grant proposal, documents: a moment in time - November 1994, a place - Moscow, and an art process - capturing, wandering, searching, wandering, and being terribly lost and sometimes found. Unseen and untouched these 20yrs, we follow this journey.
Box no. 1 Russian Journal
[folders]
Sketchbook, 1989-90
Basic 8 ½ x 11 288 pages multi-purpose 60lb drawing paper perforated sheet signature edition
18/iv/1989 Moscow – Моя Бабушка/oh, Grandmother. Poem + drawing, pencil on paper.
Logs Tapes 1-8, 1994
АБВГ // АО „бумизделия″ ТЕТРАДЬ ОБЩАЯ Арт. С‒1345 pencil + ink on paper
location scout for 'Russian Journal' – notes + drawings of interior Moscow Metro
Journal #2, 1994/5
АБВГ // АО „бумизделия″ ТЕТРАДЬ ОБЩАЯ Арт. С‒1345,pencil + ink on paper
Entry from 02/xii/1994 – Description of 'Russia/Moscow Journal' sample tape after it was sent off to New York.
Journal #3?, 1995 (started as ‘тетрадь Руссково языка')
АБВГ // АО „бумизделия″ ТЕТРАДЬ ОБЩАЯ Арт. С‒1345 pencil + ink on paper
Entry from 9/iii/1995 – left page: interview questions for Gera Morales; right page: waiting for Stanley at American Grill Bar, Moscow
Journal, 1996-7
hardcover black + red EFA chinatown college ruled blank book. Pen on paper
Entry from 19/vi/1996 Moscow – debrief from meeting with Lily Dixon :: shot video as she voted, then discussed approach to 'Black Russians' and race and representation in USSR + Russia 1930s-1990s
[miscellaneous - various kitch objects]
Kara-Kum/Кара-Кум :: Red October/Красний Октябрь, n.d.
candy wrappers, memoriabilia
women's scarf, circa 1989
personal photographs circa 1989/1994
BIO:
The Archivist/Curator:
It is the present. Haunted by the past and doubtful of the future, The Archivist excavates the vault. She dusts off relics cataloging each artifact. From this vast inventory she selects series for the viewing public. Known for her forensic capacity in reading art objects and artifacts she is an expert in the field, finding the integrity of under-examined objects. As Curator, she creates a context of analysis to read material culture in the present. She is attracted to texts/objects dismissed as ‘naive,’ ‘idealistic,’ and ‘outsider,’ by critics and the cultural elite. Willing to follow any flight of fancy her goal is to reveals the ‘voice’ of objects and artifacts.
kara lynch is a time-based artist living en exilio born in the auspicious year of 1968. Ambivalent towards hyper-visual culture, she is curious about duration, embodiment, and the aural; and through collective practice and social intervention she explores aesthetic/political relationships between time + space. Her work is vigilantly raced, classed, and gendered - Black, anarchist, queer and eco-feminist. kara is a member of Interdiciplinario, La Lìnea, a feminist artist collective on the Tijuana/San Ysidro border. She completed her MFA in Visual Arts at UCSD, a Permaculture Design Certification from the Center for Bioregional Living, and currently is an Associate Professor of Video and Critical Studies at Hampshire College.
Recent projects include: 'Invisible’ - an episodic, speculative installation and performance project; ‘Mouhawala Oula’ - a trio performance for oriental dance, live video and saxophone, ‘P.S. Odysseus’ - a video love-letter; 'Xing Over' - a multi-channel audio piece; 'Black Russians' - a feature-length documentary; and ‘The Outing’ - a video travelogue. Awards for her video and performance work include iFilms and PlanetOut and Individual artist grants from NYFA, NYSCA and Franklin Furnace. She participated in various artist residencies: Arts International Residency in Moscow; the Banff Centre for the Arts; el Laboratorio Fronterizo de Escritores/Writing Lab on the Border; and the Civitella Ranieri Center in Italy. She’s published in XCP Streetnotes, Ulbandus Review, BFM, contributed audio to Cabinet Magazine, video to PocketMyths, and drawings/writings to the Encyclopedia Project v.II F-K. kara is honored to have her archive excavated and cataloged for exclusive use by the Wayland Rudd Collection.
Photo: Etienne Frossard