Anders Dickson

In flight from thought, what common sense remains? In examining the current of technological development it is clear to see that the original celestial impulses persist. The spirit of technē is like a wildfire devouring ever further into the incessantly expanding horizon of unimagined use; and while it is both the danger and saving-grace, the consequential enlarging of the world is paramount to those trying to find solace there.

The black monolith display presents a new series of sculptures made from grey board, epoxy clay and various found items. Roughly equal in size, they allude to divergent functions. The potential motion for action is implicit in the numerous systemic-seeming components. The objects here aren’t useful for anything specific worth it to explain. They dont map to being subservient tools, and therefore they hang in limbo, waiting. The tao not spoken is the true tao. Perhaps they might look like things known to us, and while they resemble a typewriter or printer, they’re certainly not. These bodies repel any inclination to think they’re mass produced. Thus these apparatuses disappear so soon as they’re employed, and we also cease to exist when becoming their operators.

John Henry infamously defeated the steam powered hammer only to collapse in exhaustion. Today the tasks we offload onto tools are too incomprehensible; so it would be futile to grab the hammer and challenge. The appearance of new flying objects are like psychoid manifestations for a societal psychology seeking meaning while also trying to find itself at home with sick tech/ and slick machines. Remember though when there was a fear of just the written word? Mind blind, you begin to come back to your s(ent)ences. Perhaps because of this sneering breeze, rotting frost, and the shivering orchard, any cowardice that had remained is gone. The wind is howling down there. Mundane sheets drawn over beds, this is the true america.

:In flight here-bound, the thought arose as to how this airplanes’ cockpit has no windows. Just panels. This smoke screen sketches shadows of the outside and they become more real. In flight from thought: We’re moving with ease now, and more than going anywhere, the anywhere is going towards the us. Seated in comfort; having only just rolled from bed into another comfortable seat, the location spins below. The ontological shock experienced when re-confronting the real may be enough to break even the toughest of rational muscles and calculating of minds. Divine proportions were once thought to be the requisite for instilling life into the inanimate creations. Making something from nothing, the magi turned technicians.

A black wheel turns over the globe.

You’re the driver,

Its tread running the colors from one shape into the next, Continental drift or the blood of today?

—A.D.

Anders Dickson (b. 1988 Wisconsin, USA) lives and works between Amsterdam, New York and Paris. While his practice gravitates predominantly around painting, other mediums are also used and assembled in immersive installations. Many themes pervade the practice, but the recurrent concepts reveal an interest in understanding, weirding, memory, and liminality. The artist works very intuitively using a DIY approach to incorporate diverse materials like cardboard, grapefruit rinds, felts, wire, and other found materials. The general conceptual background driving the works originates in his research of high-strangeness and fringe topics like ufological theory as hypothesized by thinkers like Erik Davis, Jeffrey Kripal, and Jacques Vallée.

Selected solo shows: Frieze London (2023); Powercells, The Commons, P/////AKT, Amsterdam (2022); Liste Basel with Wschód, duo show with Adam Shiu Yang Shaw, Basel Other truths from the party, Wschód, Warsaw (2020); Sudden Wilt (w/ Clémence de la Tour du Pin), Balice Hertling, Paris Cult Of The Dirty Sunflower, Izacaia, Vienna (2019); Hobo Chili and the songs of rain, Wschód, Warsaw Bone Orchard, Te Bakery, Annet Gelink Gallery, Amsterdam Once A Closely Guarded Secret (cu- rated by Martin Herbert), De Ateliers, Amsterdam (2018). Selected group shows: Barbe a papa, Capc Musée D’art Contemporain De Bordeaux Man’s Traces in Nature, Wschód, Warsaw (2022); WALK!, Schirn Kunsthalle, Frankfurt (2021); Perhaps a window, Stadium, Berlin (2020); Hinky Punk, Billytown, The Hague Ford Every Stream, Galeria Acappella, Naples Everything Ordinary, PiK, Cologne Whoohw Haah Huuhuuh (curated by David Zink Yi), Lovaas Projects, Munich (2019).