Last Thursday we went to hear a talk by the American artist Samuel Yates. The event was put on by the land foundation, the group that I’ll be working with this year, and took place at the artist Kamin’s studio. Ajarn Kamin (or ‘Teacher Kamin’, he sometimes teaches at CMU), along with Rirkrit Tiravanija, started the foundation. Kamin’s studio is a nice big barn space, strewn with small sculptures and large paintings and other works-in-progress (he is quite prolific).
Samuel Yates most recently finished the ‘Color of Palo Alto’, which comes at the end of line of work dealing with beauracracy. Whether dismantling an MG and filing the car parts in a tower of file cabinets, painting with human remains, or transplanting the soil from a purchased cemetery plot, often his artwork is accompanied by a hefty amount of legal documents.
At one point, it began to rain quite heavily outside, and Kamin placed a few buckets under some leaky spots in the roof, high above. As a precautionary measure, an umbrella was opened, then placed above Mr. Yates laptop, and the presentation continued with the absurd casualness that made me think of Jacques Tati.
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