Throw

paper, graphite powder

paper dimensions variable

site-specific installation

2018

Throw as part of the Masculinities exhibition series at The Gund Gallery, Kenyon College, Gambier, OH in 2019

Type A continues to play competitive games to create artworks that straddle the line between violence and beauty, danger and amusement. Taking inspiration from the age-old circus act of knife throwing, Type A set up a contest of skill with each member taking a turn trying to hit a paper target with a knife, tip dipped in graphite. While circus acts employ a (usually) female assistant on a rotating target, Type A are not, in fact, courageous/crazy enough to throw knives at each other (yes it crossed our minds). Yet the reference to this traditional gender dynamic emerges within the paper targets themselves.

With each throw comes the possibility the knife piercing the paper or clanging sideways against it only to fall to the ground or rebound back at the thrower or miss the target altogether. While the act involves skill as well as muscle memory, there is a definitive element of focus and psychological challenge required by this collaborative contest. Each member of Type A must constantly navigate his own mind, balancing competing pressures to succeed with the need to withdraw, to be “in the zone,” as well as to manage the sometimes overt trash-talking by his competitor/collaborator. 

Within this sometimes tense environment, the presence of a weapon as a tool for art making becomes more palpable. An obvious phallic object, the sharp knife connotes a blunt masculinity, exacerbated by the violently created slits in the paper. Each member of Type A extends his maleness, trying to outdo the other. The end result, an aggressively ragged piece of paper, lacerated and bludgeoned, exhibits the results of the competition. Yet, somehow, an aesthetic emerges. Throw directly references artists who have transgressed the surface of their medium. But it also calls to mind instances when viewers have attempted to destroy artworks as well as when artists destroy work they do not want anymore. Out of ruin comes beauty.