works
sited

"cats and dogs: catalog"
Kathryn Andrews
September 1st - October 1st, 2009

Continuing with Central Library’s Works Sited series, the Art & Music department presents “Cats and Dogs: Catalog” by Los Angeles artist Kathryn Andrews, the third installation in a series of displays relating to the library’s collections and practices. Working with equal amounts of deliberation and caprice, Andrews combines images, objects and structures from both in and outside the library into an evocative exhibit.

Mixing her own objects and textiles with images from the Art & Music department’s Picture Files – a collection of loose photographs and magazine clippings amassed by librarians prior to the advent of the Internet – Andrews creates a playful installation that investigates how the library references its contents. By strategically placing wood structures, textiles and images in and around the library’s existing display cases, sign stanchions and overall architectural composition, Andrews confronts conventional library display methods and directive strategies by leading viewers not only to the contents of these structures but to the very nature of the structures themselves. In essence Andrews enframes these frames, asking the viewer to think about how the library’s very efforts at directing visitors to its resources influence (and essentially limit) visitors’ ideas of what those resources may be.

Andrews’ use of the Picture Files is notable; like her installation, the collection quickly reveals the complicated nature of classification. Consisting of an assortment of photographs and magazine clippings arranged alphabetically by subject heading, the Picture Files reveal a complex relationship between the pictures and the subject designations they belong to. Andrews’ piece mimics this loose system but unites - through means both conceptual and formal - a variety of seemingly unrelated objects (Snoopy, cherry-wood cabinetry, leopard-fur prints, gold textiles, sunglasses) under the rubric “Cats and Dogs.” While poking fun at what a catalog can be Andrews’ title relies upon automatic association, ultimately undermining it. What do all these objects really have in common? By pointing to how we make conceptual and perceptual associations, Andrews reveals the complex mechanics of how one makes sense of the world. Yet in Andrews’ installation the logic of these combinations do not always add up, reminding us that the original – what the catalog directs us to – is complex and often unclassifiable.

Kathryn Andrews (b. 1973, Mobile, Alabama) is an interdisciplinary artist whose work has been exhibited internationally at venues including Courtyard Gallery, Beijing, China; Galerie Christian Nagel, Cologne, Germany; Glendale College, Glendale, California and ACME Gallery, Los Angeles. She received a Bachelor of Arts from Duke University in 1995 and a Master of Fine Arts from Art Center College of Design in Pasadena in 2003. She currently lives and works in Los Angeles.

To accompany the display, the artist has provided a bibliography of titles that have influenced her artistic practice. All books are available in the library for loan or reference.

A special viewing will take place on September 9, 2009 from 6-8pm. The artist will be in attendance.

works cited

Albers, Josef. Interaction of color. New Haven: Yale UP, 1971. Print.

Epstein, Mark. Open to desire embracing a lust for life using insights from Buddhism and psychotherapy. New York: Gotham Books, 2005. Print.

Fuller, Buckminster. I seem to be a verb. New york: Bantam, 1970. Print.

Gawain, Shakti. Creative visualization. Berkeley, Calif: Whatever Pub., 1978. Print.

Guaraldi, Vince. A Charlie Brown Christmas: piano/solo/vocal chords. Miami, FL: CPP/Belwin, c1991. Print.

Holder, Robert. You can analyze handwriting. Englewood cliffs: Prentice hall, 1958. Print.

Murray, Elizabeth. Elizabeth Murray, paintings and drawings. New York: H.N. Abrams in association with the Dallas Museum of Art and the MIT Committee on the Visual Arts, 1987. Print.

Pinto, Jerry. Bollywood Posters. London; New York: Thames & Hudson, 2008. Print.

Weingart, Wolfgang. My typography from Graphic design theory readings from the field. New York: Princeton Architectural, 2009. Print.

Weschler, Lawrence. Seeing is forgetting the name of the thing one sees a life of contemporary artist Robert Irwin. Berkeley: University of California, 1982. Print.

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