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Untitled (Fly Tapes: Trios, Passive Collect), 2014

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About The Work

In addition to air samplers, Jesse Stecklow has been using fly tapes to build generative data systems–as they too are passively sampling for organic compounds in the air. He’s been installing them in shows and then collecting them to put them into new works. Because they have no “off” switch, he seals them in plastic usually used for storing negatives. For this unique work, Stecklow has enlarged fly tapes from a previous, essentially producing photographs from these typically discarded objects.

Courtesy of the artist

About Jesse Stecklow

Jesse Stecklow builds systems of generative making, creating works that determine content and material for future works while continuing to point backwards to the works that act as their source. For example, for multiple pieces he has borrowed a system of documentation involving the use of air samplers. Commonly employed in factory or fabrication environments to test for toxins, the samplers mimic contemporary standards for data collection. The passive air samplers come in the form of tubes or small analog badges that can be clipped like an ID onto a worker’s uniform or set to rest on a stand. The artist allows the work to collect compounds in the air for the duration of an exhibition, then the sampler is mailed to a lab that produces a data set. This data acts as a list of possible material decisions based on the different compounds that the lab finds in analysis. These data sets are a means of flattening and compressing a large amount of spatial information as a photograph or architectural model might. As these sampling works travel, appearing in various spaces, they continue to produce feedback loops of material information, converting their given setting into a space of exhibition and recording. Like much of Stecklow’s practice, these works are located in a sort of semi-functional state where they are unstable, actively gaining and losing bits of functionality while partaking in an often constant flow of information.

He has had solo exhibitions at Retrospective in Hudson and M+B in Los Angeles. His work was included in a group exhibition he curated at Chin’s Push in Los Angeles, that was an ARTFORUM “Critics’ Pick.”. Other group exhibitions include Galerie Xippas in Paris, CLEARING in New York, Martos Gallery in New York, Favorite Goods in Los Angeles, and David Shelton Gallery in Houston.

Courtesy of the artist

Jesse Stecklow

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