[Title] Ghosts
[Artists] Jon Kessler ＋ Paul Auster
[Date] February 24 – May 9, 2004
Initially I thought of Paul’s book because it so beautifully embodied a literal notion of color and fantasy. The characters are named for colors and there are many wonderful references to colors that are described in the book and so there is a play that occurs in the reader’s mind, reading a word and having a visual idea of the word engages their imagination. Paul is known for deconstructing the detective genre novel. I, in turn was interested in constructing the “deconstruction” but through the use of signifiers that might or might not come together in the pages of the book, the videos or the audio track.
I have collaborated with Paul before and in “Word Box” (1992) he gave me a text which another friend, the artist Christopher Wool painted onto panels and then I built a mechanism which slowly displayed them.
In installation at Le Forum, there is a diacritic component in that I did the body casts of my 3 brother-in-lows in Minnesota where my wife’s family is from. OK – Let me back up with a little family history. The Hustvedt’s are a Norwegian-American family from Northfield, Minnesota. The father Lloyd Hustvedt, a professor at St. Olaf College, died on February 2nd and this exhibition is dedicated to him. He and his wife Ester had 4 children – all daughters. Siri is the oldest and is a well-known writer, she is married to Paul. Liv is married to Stephen Remes who is playing White. Then comes Asti, my wife, and last is Ingrid who is married to Bruce Cutler, who plays Blue. Three of the daughters and their husbands live in New York so we go back to the family home in Northfield each Christmas for a traditional Norwegian style holiday with real candles in the tree and lots of cakes and cookies made from recipes handed down from Norway. It was there that Paul and I made the recording of Ghosts and where everyone was relaxed enough to have their faces covered in plaster for 20 minutes while breathing through straws in their noses.
The installation comes out of many conversations that Paul and I have had over cigars and single malt scotch about the differences between books, film and visual information. What is important to both of us in our work is the element of play and chance, so this is why we decided to have the video cameras randomly scanning the pictures, text and colored papers.
Another aspect that we are happy about is the participation of Paul’s Japanese translator, Motoyuki Shibata, and this idea of personal and professional connections that construct your life is important to us. For me personally this is echoed in that Kozo Fujimoto, who I first met through my Austrian gallery when I first showed in Osaka in 1992 and who is still a friend and facilitator of my projects.
Jon Kessler
February 2004