Clarion Vol. 1: Kandis Williams: A Line
Curator's Note: There Are Two Sides to Every Line
Excerpt:
This is the first volume of Clarion 1. Each exhibition at 52 Walker will have an accompanying edition in the series, highlighting and expanding on the show’s conceptual theses through newly commissioned texts, interviews, archival materials, and artistic interventions. The series’ design is inspired by leather-bound encyclopedias, which speaks to the archival and research-based ethos behind 52 Walker’s exhibitions and publications. Although aesthetically consistent, each volume can take a different form in direct response to the work and in collaboration with the artists.
Words such as “conceptual” and “research-based” have become descriptors of 52 Walker—its exhibitions, books, library, and curatorial interests. The gallery presents four exhibitions a year, slowing the traditional gallery structure to a model more aligned with a kunsthalle. Visitors are invited to return to a show over its three-month run to engage in a practice of durational viewing, promoting a critical engagement with the work. The Clarion series further conceptually encapsulates the goals of 52 Walker, in contributing to scholarship, serving as an archive, and adapting the material of each volume to the ideas and installations put forward by each artist.
