(link)
The NYTimes said they "evoked vanished histories," which seems accurate to their strange floating connections to the figures, and performers who like Adkins were intended to activate them, are no longer around. "Columbia (2007), for instance, is a circular piece of wood painted with as many layers of black enamel as LPs that blues singer Bessie Smith released on Columbia Records." Is information retained in after being destroyed in a black hole seems an apt question. The "recitals" label that he often used in place of "exhibition" is left to youtube-documentation, reinterpretations, stories. "An animistic approach to materials... when working with found materials I wait... for instance in my early stages I would go to junkyard. Junkyards have a lot of junk in them... identifying themselves has having potential to do something else... that is potential disclosure." Like attempts to carry forward history, connect the past, it all feels like lost civilization attempted to be touched.
see too: Melvin Edwards at Daniel Buchholz, Park McArthur at Chisenhale, Yngve Holen at Kunsthalle Basel, Cameron Rowland at Daniel Buchholz