Chris Wilder
Californian artist Chris Wilder has dedicated himself to exploring the processes which might transform fantasies into either coherent forms or cultural mythologies. His field of inquiry ranges from depictions of God to representations of UFOs and deploys a wide range of media, including ambiguous encounters of an other-worldly kind. Hence, his 'spacy' art remains readable as a space of projection.
For his recent video work Wonderful Kopenhagen (1998), part of Wilder's 'Complete Loss of Self' solo exhibition at Kapinos, he asked students to record the underwater world of an aquarium. The resultant clip is a lo-fi ambient document, its dark electronic noise soundtrack functioning like an improbably placed sound effects device. This incongruent vision of 'sonic fiction' ineffectively transforms the gallery into an extra-terrestrial base.
Kandinsky's ideas about the hidden biomorphic micro-universes of geometric abstraction and the streamlined colour flows of a Munch are all echoed in Wilder's oil paintings, with their ominous titles like Doppeldoppelgänger (1998). The theosophist Rudolph Steiner's notion that the world is headed for disaster, science has failed, and that there is need for a spiritual rebirth is recycled in a snotty, psychedelic manner, evoking journeys through alien space along abstract and occult symbols in circular form. And yet Wilder's isn't a trippy imagery. The surface is rough, unpolished. Adolescent Conceptualism is married to something like a revisionist approach towards the flipside of industrial progress.
A more biographical take on the impenetrable is explored in a series of paintings that has dates for titles. On the surface of the paintings, Wilder has printed the names of British punk bands he likes and the places they toured in their home country. Back in 78, British Punk was big in Wilder's life. Yet he could only enter this imaginary world through magazines. Dots - minimal techno iconography - are rematerialised as painterly subjects on shiny, monochromatic backgrounds.
Defining his relation towards the abstract pillars of his life is most likely the main motivation for Wilder's collages, the newest works in the show. For pieces like Art News; Vol.23/Issue17, October/November (1997) the artist juxtaposed reproductions by artists like Alexis Rockman, Jeff Koons and Dale Chihuly. Apparently, however, the work isn't about the anxiety of influence, but rather about an attempt to access his unconscious visual archive.
The works displayed at Kapinos are perhaps best seen like Mandalas of the media age. In a recent conversation with Mike Kelley, Wilder established a relationship between UFO representations (apparently exemplary Mandalas) and his art. To conceive of Ufology as an analogy of the unofficial subtext of art history is tantalising, especially considering how open to interpretation representations of world systems currently are. As communication is increasingly telecommunications based, the world moves on driven by invisible flows of capital and information. How to capture what's imperceptible and in constant flux?
Wilder's Pavilion to the Loss of Self (1998), the central installation piece at Kapinos, endorses these concerns. A minimalist cube made of one-way reflective glass rests upon a gray square socket at eye-level. Above it, a transparent circular umbrella is suspended from the ceiling. Facing the cube, one's image is multiplied endlessly in 'a room of thousand mirrors'. A deft totem pole for the information society, the sculpture evinces sacred qualities. In the city of bytes, God is - as the Japanese cyberella animation 'Ghost in the Shell' has it - an unidentified hacker, an intelligent life form born in the sea of information.
