“The Lost Kinetic World” Posted on May 27, 2009 by Kevin Killian
San Franciscans have but a few days to scurry down to Ratio 3 on Stevenson Street, there to check out “Liberation Upon Contact,” new work by gallery artists including Jose Alvarez, Sam Gordon, Jordan Kantor, Ruth Laskey, Barry McGee, Mitzi Pederson, Ara Peterson, and Jonathan Runcio. (Show closes May 30.) For those of you who have never been there, Ratio 3 and its director, debonair, saturnine Chris Perez, ”bring vastness to the mind.” That’s their slogan, and I always wince when I hear it first, then I think a little, forced to acquiesce.
A year ago I got a package in the mail with a few DVDs in it, each one an excerpt from Sam Gordon’s project “The Lost Kinetic World,” a 24 hour video montage of his wanderings through the art world. I scanned the accompanying press materials and was surprised to see myself listed among the hundreds of art figures appearing in the film. Dodie Bellamy too. She was on disk 4 and I was on disk 9 or something like that. Naturally we were curious to see what we were doing! The instinct was to fast forward through all the other chazzerai and find ourselves, and yet the rhythm and the fantastic juxtapositions of the material slowed us right down, and we wound up watching for hours. In New York last week I went to visit Sam Gordon in his studio and find out more about the man who had made us immortal with his roving eye. (more…)
