KinoSaito Art Center is pleased to feature a solo presentation of Brooklyn-based artist Alina Tenser. A selection of floor sculptures and wall mounted reliefs accompanies a video in the artists’ continued study of the domestic, the diagrammatic, and the social formation of the self, informed by her experience as an immigrant and parent. Tenser’s unassuming sculptural assemblages bely their depth, asking viewers to observe closely, recalibrate their thinking, and intuit more freely.
The titular sculpture anchoring the presentation introduces the home, language, and movement as central ideas. Disemvoweled, the title highlights the frenzied state of work/life (im)balance for parents today, which reached a fever pitch during the Covid-19 pandemic when children were educated remotely and during which the artist produced the work. Like SMS-evolved text, Wrk Frm Hm leaves absences, asking our minds to fill in the blanks. A desk invites the public to examine a desk with a cursor trackpad floating on its glass top with small multi-shaped aluminum devices visible below. The artist likens the shapes to frozen gestures (drag, swipe, click, and pinch) from her computer-based work regime, in reflection of Apple’s recent patenting of hand movements. These metal devices appear again animated in the video projection, in which they glide in a tray of water like a play version of the liquid crystal display interface.
Below the desk, a reoriented viewer will find a sculptural assemblage reminiscent of toddler bead puzzle toys also model Tenser’s work from home hand gestures as she used video to teach art students. These seemingly extraneous gesticulations convey empathy in an attempt to connect across a mediated exchange. Partially inspired by the line diagrams for factory worker movements by industrial engineer Frank Gilbreth, Tenser’s dynamic model highlights the undervaluing of emotional labor in the pedagogical and family environment but also functions as reminder of play, movement, and embodied learning that underpin our higher faculties.
Language play is further explored as a foundational aspect of the self in House/Xaoc, a set of concrete letter forms set inside a multi-pocket vinyl and zipper container. The English word ‘house’ has the same phonetic resonance as the Ukrainian word for ‘chaos’ or ‘clutter’. In linguistics the pair are termed as false friends. Tenser linkens her partially zipped vinyl containers to floor plans, suggesting a translation between two and three dimensional space. However, the unfolding of the floppy vinyl and bright lines of the zippers don’t easily convert into doors, walls, and joints. The sculptural works and architecture then can also be understood as another type of false friends in need of further examination.
A family of wall-mounted vinyls enhance Tenser’s engagement with the positive/negative, presence/absence, and learned/intuited dichotomies. L-Shaped Layout functions as both diagram or model (its dimensions match those of a threshold at its original display site) and architectural ornament intervening directly in space. Gravity yearns to deflate other vinyl wall works, with generous droop approaching, but resisting wall flatness. KinoSaito in the former St. Patrick’s elementary school is an ideal site to view Tenser’s material and conceptual containers.
Written by Jess Wilcox
