deankessmann

Details: Utilitarian Abstraction

archival pigment prints, 31 ½ x 21 inches (image), 33 ½ x 23 inches (paper), 2015—ongoing
edition 1/1 (number of prints in groups vary)

archival pigment prints
31 ½ x 21 inches (image) 33 ½ x 23 inches (paper)
2015—ongoing
edition 1/1 (number of prints in groups vary)

Read a short description of this project

Details: Utilitarian Abstraction

This series of prints is a subset of Utilitarian Abstraction. The overall compositions in the prints that make up Utilitarian Abstraction are determined by the placement of the printer codes on the cardboard boxes. Simply put, I kept as much area around the patches of colors and registration marks as possible, up to, but not including, the points at which legible print or imagery from the product packaging became visible. The dimensions of the individual prints in Details: Utilitarian Abstraction are uniform, but the numbers of prints in the groups vary widely, including some singular images. A primary reason for making this work was a desire to take back aesthetic control over the composition of the individual images and generate entirely new arrangements with multiple prints, after having chosen to relinquish this influence over the imagery in Utilitarian Abstraction. Additionally, the degree of magnification has increased even as the size of the individual prints has decreased; thus, the image quality starts to break down in ways that further remove the resulting pieces from their printed source material while simultaneously reflecting upon the digital environment through which the data has been filtered. Like the images in Utilitarian Abstraction, the final pieces in this subset carefully re-present this functional imagery in order to expose the ways in which the graphic design and printing industries have usurped the visual language of fine art, and vice versa.