EXHIBITION(S)

Stephen Kent
Kopf Kino
September 10–November 18, 2023
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Stephen Kent
A Constant Companion
with Stuart Kestenbaum
September 10–30, 2023

OPENING

Sunday, September 10, 2023
1–6 p.m.

RECEPTION

Sunday, September 10, 2023
3–6 p.m.
LOCATION(S)

1524 S. Western Ave.
Ste. 408–410, Building A
Chicago, IL 60608

1524 S. Western Ave.
Ste. 114, Building A
Chicago, IL 60608

EXHIBITION TEXT

Kopf Kino is a solo exhibition by Pennsylvania-born and Berlin-based artist Stephen Kent which gathers a series of work from 2021–2023 that dives into a cinematic realm—exploring the photographic possibilities within a sculptural practice. The series Within the Egg of a Flea began as a reference to Joseph Campbell’s perception of how we create myth out of the smallest act of noticing: how something so minuscule can turn into a expansive and magnificent story which we all have the capability to spark. The minuscule in this series of work is the pixel: where the ancient technique of mosaic weaves into the contemporary resolution of the digital camera and the zettabyte of data that we absorb, create, and share at every moment with our smartphones and technological apparati. In this case, Kent’s work uses an iPhone to facilitate an active photographic journaling that happens throughout the artist’s daily activities (e.g. en route to the studio, running errands, on vacation with family, etc.). The title of the show, Kopf Kino (translated as “head movie”), refers to a slippage wherein the mind is agitated by this sensory overload, causing a separation between reality and perception: a disassociation that creates a fissure in ones mind—and which is represented in the trompe-l’œil qualities of the work and the retail landscapes that the photographs capture. With the installation, the artist has built an arched threshold between two rooms that fluctuate between warm and cool fluorescent lighting, casting a subtle atmospheric imbalance that further emphasizes this dislocation.

In conjunction with Kopf Kino, the artist has initiated an offsite project titled A Constant Companion that includes a presentation of the series A Walk Within Ones Mind—a newer body of work that furthers this inquiry into perception and experiments with the assistance of psychedelics. Using a painterly approach, the artist inserts mosaics into appropriated motives of found and collaged still lifes and unlocks a gestural approach to image-making. As part of this offsite project, Kent has built a bar and invited several collaborators and mentors to contribute their own work to the project: to inaugurate this platform he has invited Stuart Kestenbaum—former poet laureate of Maine, mentor of the artist, and whose phrase a constant companion is the namesake of the project—to contribute four ceramic vessels to be used at the bar and several volume of poems which speak about vulnerability, unknowing, and celebrate and ponder navigating ones way through the journey of being human.

Kopf Kino by Stephen Kent is the artist’s first solo exhibition with Good Weather and is on view until November 18, 2023, with gallery hours on Thursdays, Fridays, and Saturdays from 1–6 p.m. or by appointment.
POEM

Holding the Light
for Kait Rhoads

Gather up whatever is
glittering in the gutter,
whatever has tumbled
in the waves or fallen
in flames out of the sky,

for it’s not only our
hearts that are broken,
but the heart
of the world as well.
Stitch it back together.

Make a place where
the day speaks to the night
and the earth speaks to the sky.
Whether we created God
or God created us

it all comes down to this:
In our imperfect world
we are meant to repair
and stitch together
what beauty there is, stitch it

with compassion and wire.
See how everything
we have made gathers
the light inside itself
and overflows? A blessing.

Stuart Kestenbaum (2013)

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