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c102: Autumn 2002 - Dublin: Katie Holten at Temple Bar C102 review
Katie Holten's 137.5° does not explore any new scientific phenomenon nor tread any new philosophical path. It is an exhibition which demonstrates the artist's will to actively see and understand the world for herself. It started on the c train is a large crocheted wall hanging which Holten initiated on the New York subway, continuing the ritual for three months while travelling around Northern Europe using just the one stitch. It is significant that the artist has chosen to initiate the ancient and solitary activity of meditative knot making in the most modern and populated of places. Synthesising the primitive and the modern would seem to be a powerful motif in Holten's work. The centre of the piece is positioned in a corner of the gallery, from where the web-like form radiates towards the ceiling, floor and walls. It started on the c train is described as "just a collection of wonky crochet doodles," the product of a spontaneous and unconscious exploration of scientific theory, a mandalic form that seems to symbolise both a geographical and a philosophical search.
Whatever it was that started on the c train, it brought her to the wall drawing 137.5 ° . While crocheting she learnt that most leaves radiate from the stem at an angle of 137.5°, an e has repeatedly pencilled this pattern on the gallery walls. The resulting image resembles an astronomical chart or a molecular diagram. The marks are quite faint and cannot be seen from a distance: like its subject matter, it requires close inspection. Self avoiding walks installs the artist's desk, chair and working notes with a piece of transplanted bog from the roof of the gallery placed on the floor beside them. Holten spent ten days prior to the show working in this space, and such an installation would seem to be a signature of her exhibitions. There are some smaller exhibits, one of which is C orners (from the field of enquiry) . These clusters of crocheted wire flowers were made as a response to the fallow fields of the EU common agricultural policy. While they are visually novel structures, they are unfortunately neither a successful reference nor an adequate comment on this global issue. Holten has taken from the sciences what she perceives as relevant, and explored these ideas intuitively and unpretentiously without being tied to scientific vernacular. Although she is concerned with technical knowledge, a lot of her methods are deliberately archaic without being reactionary. After she has completed her innovative and personal process, the artefacts are exhibited, a record of her investigation. These records manage to be both archetypal and highly individual, quite literally homespun. She brings to science what only the artist can. Katie Holten: 137.5° , Temple Bar Gallery and Studios, September/October 2002 Catherine Lyons is a film maker based in Dublin.
Article reproduced from CIRCA 102, Winter 2002, pp. 72-73.
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