Above the Weather

2007 - Installation (Installation)

35 x 12 x 23 cm

Jason Dodge

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In Algeria, Djidjiga Meffre has woven a fabric with a string, a length equal to the distance from the earth to troposphere. Several works by Dodge, with the same title, follow this principle of measurement. The work, like a synecdoche, is synthesized by its material and its implementation, both of which are fully part of the meaning. The work functions like as a concentrate. Shades of color and texture relate to multiple sensory and visual sensations, evoking a sky-colored night. It is by its concentration in the weaving that the distance can be represented in a concrete way and visible in one glance. To describe the work amounts to producing a story that echoes the myths surrounding the process of weaving. Above the weather opens up multiple narratives; in the etymological sense, the text is a fabric. We can see the work as a magic carpet that allows a moving “imaginary” of the spirit in the atmosphere. The weaving technique used in the work is frequently used by the artist, contributing to Dodge’s overall poetic aesthetics.

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Jason Dodge extracts objects from everyday life – of which he adds minimal alterations by the way that he isolates and presents them. For instance, he collects all the light sources of a house in “Darkness falls on Wolkowyja Poland” (2005), he samples the strings of a violin in “The viola duo of Bela Bartok” (2007), he records on a light sensitive photo paper in “Into Black” (2007), and finally he adds a bell brush chimney sweep in “Ringing Through chimneys” (2007). The artist goes beyond the silent dimension of the object to reveal their narrative potential, triggering fiction. The artist considers them as elements of a broader context. “I ??try to consider my work related to writing, but using a visual language,” says the Dodge. Name placards accompanying works are pretexts for further stories, supplemented by the imagination of the viewer and their inquiries. The artist, as a storyteller, reintroduces stories, the spoken word, and language in the space of the white cube. In Dodge’s work, the readable is not reducible to the visible. It operates like a trompe l’oeil, an image that gives the illusion of distance from reality, yet is blurred by the poetry of the intervention of the artist. Jason Dodge was born in 1969 in Newton, Pennsylvania, USA. He lives and works in New York and Berlin.

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Colors:

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• synecdoche.n.01
• atmosphere.n.03
• weaving.n.01
• measurement.n.01
• language.n.01
• distance.n.01