Knot Here

Salient feature #1: This installation, which has mutated for at least the 9 months I have been here, sometimes fades into the ostinato of plastic bags and pigeon splatter that already decorate the river walk. One of the most prominent thematic elements of it is the knot--degree zero of artistic intentionality, but with a rich history that Peruvian princesses, Lacanian topologists, boy scouts and old salts can understand. These, and other similarly adventurous sorts, are perhaps the ideal audience of this work, even though it appears smack in the middle of a major lunch hour promenade (this is not the "road not taken"). Some might be hard pressed to call it a work. Is it knot-art, or not-art? If anything, the opening of this blog might officially make it, at least, not-not-art, but whether art is sanctified by any critical apparatus is a knotty issue. If anything, the knot points to some kind of presence and attention to space: "I was knot-here." While walking thru the detritus of this ever-changing but dependable collocation of speaking garbage, one reflects on presence-absence. The invisibility of what is right in front of you is a theme. The artist could indeed be one of the many homeless people one sees camping out here in the shadow of Brown, RISD and the financial district. Or it could be a disaffected Brown or RISD student. Or both. Or maybe it's someone who already has had something in the Whitney. Whatever the secret to the mystery, this blog will document the fluctuations of the piece as I see it, and provide a space for dialogue with this intriguing intervention in public space. Holding onto the world with a language of nots . . .

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