Artist Statement
Still Life 69
Daniel Kirchen and Nathaniel Stern, 2017
We found a deserted car, and in it, a box full of pictures, receipts, newspaper clippings, bounced checks. Potential stories.
And it had us asking, What are the conditions under which stories unfold? And what is most important in those narratives? Unlike alternative facts, which can be used towards sometimes questionable political ends, “truth” in any given narrative is less important than asking what else we can experience or practice through different kinds of engagement with what is before us.
We asked the following questions.
Who were these people?
What did they value, and why?
What did they change, what did they leave behind, and what are the implications and stakes therein?
We found that a lot of what they did, said and experienced isn't that different than what all of us have been through.
A night club, a car, a party. We took this stack of papers, images and online research to re-create the scene.
An assault, a story about Madison’s future. Music and the Micro cosmopolitan area . Parents, children, fashion, and a whole host of stuff and things.
These are not forgotten, but neither have they been given voice. We have taken this matter, to wonder what matters.
This installation is both a material investigation of the potential histories and futures we found in our deserted 69 Caddy, and also an exploration more broadly into how thinking, life, and what we value can be inaugurated or revived, transformed or amplified, via art, stories, writing, individuals, groups, material things, and more.
Daniel Kirchen and Nathaniel Stern, 2017
We found a deserted car, and in it, a box full of pictures, receipts, newspaper clippings, bounced checks. Potential stories.
And it had us asking, What are the conditions under which stories unfold? And what is most important in those narratives? Unlike alternative facts, which can be used towards sometimes questionable political ends, “truth” in any given narrative is less important than asking what else we can experience or practice through different kinds of engagement with what is before us.
We asked the following questions.
Who were these people?
What did they value, and why?
What did they change, what did they leave behind, and what are the implications and stakes therein?
We found that a lot of what they did, said and experienced isn't that different than what all of us have been through.
A night club, a car, a party. We took this stack of papers, images and online research to re-create the scene.
An assault, a story about Madison’s future. Music and the Micro cosmopolitan area . Parents, children, fashion, and a whole host of stuff and things.
These are not forgotten, but neither have they been given voice. We have taken this matter, to wonder what matters.
This installation is both a material investigation of the potential histories and futures we found in our deserted 69 Caddy, and also an exploration more broadly into how thinking, life, and what we value can be inaugurated or revived, transformed or amplified, via art, stories, writing, individuals, groups, material things, and more.