Everything Is Still Really Interesting

The Green Lantern Press and Sector 2337 are pleased to present Everything Is Still Really Interesting, the latest exhibition by collaborative duo Kuras & MacKenzie. The opening will coincide with the launch of their new book, Diagrams (The Green Lantern Press, 2015), and take place at Sector 2337.

The title of the exhibition hints at a moment in time — “still” suggests something that has passed, but hasn’t yet entirely disappeared. What is it that persists? A remnant, a feeling, an after taste. A naive interest in the world, perhaps, it persists as some vague but committed idealism — whether authentic or the product of Romantic thinking, the artists do not differentiate. Either way, any residual “naiveté” is complicated. Everything Is Still Really Interesting muddles through the oppositional poles of lofty hope and hard-won cynicism, leaving the art object to mark moments in an ongoing conversation.

The works in this exhibition are eclectic and varied in subject and media, reflecting the artists’ omni-vorous collaborative practice. In its search for sources of energy and inspiration, Kuras & MacKenzie’s investigations typically culminate in paintings, sculptures, prints, and site-specific installations. Everything Is Still Really Interesting continues the lineage of those concerns.

For the last decade, Kuras & MacKenzie’s work has sought to embody and confront the tension between imagination and practicality, control and helplessness. Part of the human condition assumes a capacity to exert some control over one’s life, while anticipating the collapse of that illusion. The question raised in the aftermath is practical and imaginative at once: how does one respond to disappointment?

The artists suggest simply: “enthusiastically” embrace whatever is left.

In their own words Kuras & MacKenzie, “…stumble on punch drunk, over-extended, under-actualized, but optimistic and cautiously bemused. The inevitability of finitude hasn’t crowded in on us yet, for us there is no need for resignation.” The works in Everything Is Still Really Interesting point to a lasting enchantment with the universe, to an optimistic belief in the possibilities life among humans can afford, despite or because of the everyday melodrama in personal office politics.
The only bio we could wring out of them reads…

Kuras & Mackenzie is a partnership of Christian Kuras and Duncan MacKenzie. They have been working together for lots of years etc etc. Duncan is based in Chicago, and Christian is in Manchester UK: there, now you know something about them.

Kuras & MacKenzie, “Everything is Still Really Interesting,” installation view, 2015. Photo by Clare Britt.

Kuras & MacKenzie, “Poor Little Ad Reinhardt, version 13 (Tribute),” Wood, plaster, tool dip, acrylic paint, 2015. Photo by Clare Britt.

Kuras & MacKenzie, “Everything is Still Really Interesting.” Installation view, Sector 2337, February 2015. Photo by Clare Britt.

Kuras & MacKenzie, “Stanza IV,” mixed media, 2015. Photo by Clare Britt.

Kuras & MacKenzie, “Everything is Still Really Interesting.” Installation view, Sector 2337. Photo by Clare Britt.

Kuras & MacKenzie, “Talented,” laser prints, wax crayon, 2015. Photo by Clare Britt.

Kuras & MacKenzie, “Karl Marx Disco Ball (Bomp, Bomp, Bomp),” wood, styrofoam, cut mirror, 2015.

Kuras & MacKenzie, “People Like Me,” Silkscreen (e d. of 8, 2 artist proofs) , 2010. Photo by Clare Britt.

Kuras & MacKenzie, “Stanza V,” Mixed Media, 2015. Photo by Clare Britt.

Kuras & MacKenzie, “Welcome to the Sea of Bastards,” gold leaf on windows. Installation view, Sector 2337, February 2014. Photo by Clare Britt.