- One of NKO’s pieces on a bank building on Madison, just before the building was demolished days ago.
When Seattle artist NKO woke up at Harborview last June 5, he had no memory of the bike accident that put him there 12 days before. He also couldn’t speak. His head had been cut open, and he was breathing through a tube. Even after he finally came out of the hospital, “words weren’t where they were supposed to be, and their meaning was elusive, uncertain.” He had aphasia.
Tonight, the art he’s been making while struggling with these conditions will be shown in the apartment where he lived when the accident happened, at the Dover. There’s something of a cave-painting effect to what we are about to see. We’ll be looking at attempts at communication from a great distance.
This isn’t the first time NKO has experimented with the problem of written language. He often uses words in his works, and those words spiral off into lines that have their their own sense of life in addition to the meanings of the words attached to them. In 2009, he did something that seems like foreshadowing: He spraypainted every word of a Haruki Murakami novel onto a white van, until the words were unreadably thick (while DK Pan and another artist read and typed the novel aloud; this happened in Occidental Park). Then he drove the story around town, nobody knowing it wasn’t just a black van.
In this new, intimate show, NKO is using sticker vinyl applied to glass, cardboard, and paper—almost exclusively recycled or found—plus spray paint, ink, white oil paint, white-out, and gold leaf. The opposition of white-out and gold leaf seems fitting for an artist struggling with what is preserved and what is lost, as well as working between the gallery system and the street. The opening is 5 to 10 pm tonight.
At the risk (perhaps very high) of sounding dickish, it’s good to know that folks in this sitch have long-term options even if their recovery stalls somewhere well short of 100%.
Wait, that picture is supposed to be of “art”? It’s a giant scribble on a rock, is what it is. Something tells me the art world will survive without this “street artist”.
Yeah, that comment would qualify as dickish, dick-tastic or dick-straordinarily trite.
@2: Kthxbai.
Too contrived to even be bohemian.
i hope he heals quickly
I agree with #2, and I’m adding, “He spraypainted every word of a Haruki Murakami novel onto a white van, until the words were unreadably thick (while DK Pan and another artist read and typed the novel aloud; this happened in Occidental Park). Then he drove the story around town, nobody knowing it wasn’t just a black van.”
This is just the kind of bullshit I’m on about. It WAS just a black van. They painted it black. It doesn’t matter HOW they did it. Whether they dunked it whole into a tank of paint, or scribbled on it until it was black, it wasn’t making a secret profound journey through the streets, it was just a fucking black van at that point. It’s this kind of vanity masturbation that is getting arts budgets mercilessly slashed around the world.
is his nake pronounced Niko. Or N-K-O ?
#4 Oh, I’m not leaving, Jenny. Sorry. K? Thx! Bai!
So how is this van art but a 1938 Alfa Romeo 8c 2900MM isn’t? Or a Stutz Black Hawk? Do they become art once you spray paint them black? It seems like the line that you are drawing around art and not art is intent, but how do you know the honest intent of the maybe artist? What if they change their mind? Or what if maybe we all just agree that art is different things to different people and really subjective and it’s okay if maybe our views of art don’t overlap? To me, tagging isn’t a fraction of the creative accomplishment of the Maserati A6GCS Berlinetta.
@1: Not sure exactly what you mean by this, but unfortunately for all of us it does smack of extreme dickishness.
@2: Kind of like how this blog will survive without your “comments”?
@7: Maybe you should delve a little deeper into the motivations behind the work before making such harsh and sweeping statements.
@7: “Cars are not art” was never typed by me. Simplifying things makes it easier to write comments, but not to make sense.
I’m appalled at the ignorance present in comments 1, 2, and 7. And # 5…your an idiot. The work on the bank that was demolished is definitely thought out. However only an egotistic and jealous scenster would call it contrived.
NKO’s work is about impermanence, the nuances that go unnoticed and much more. It’s about intention (which idiots call contrived), association, and so much more.
If you want to comment on someones art than take the time to have an educated response. As a teacher I make sure my students always look for ‘what works and what doesn’t’ and if nothing works than I ask that they find a way to make their critique constructive still and not personal.
2,5,7 – your all lame. Jen, I wish you would just erase their ugliness for good.
I’m appalled at the ignorance present in comments 1, 2, and 7. And # 5…your an idiot. The work on the bank that was demolished is definitely thought out. However only an egotistic and jealous scenster would call it contrived.
NKO’s work is about impermanence, the nuances that go unnoticed and much more. It’s about intention (which idiots call contrived), association, and so much more.
If you want to comment on someones art than take the time to have an educated response. As a teacher I make sure my students always look for ‘what works and what doesn’t’ and if nothing works than I ask that they find a way to make their critique constructive still and not personal.
2,5,7 – your all lame. Jen, I wish you would just erase their ugliness for good.