signs and symbols

Lost Contact with 12 Sentiments: A nod to resignation
Carol Szymanski

beginning June 1, 2020
online only

signs and symbols is delighted to present Carol Szymanski's Lost Contact with 12 Sentiments: A nod to resignation as our second performance in-residence at the gallery, taking place online only.

Lost Contact with 12 Sentiments: A nod to resignation. On the ironic and often hypocritical nature of the interpersonal relations in a corporate environment. What one says is very often not what one means. Meaning gets disturbed and one starts to wonder, what is meaning anyway? The dialogues are derived from cockshut dummy, an email-based work with texts and images made while the artist was working as a banker. The underlying formal structure of the series is influenced by the serialist composition method of Arnold Schoenberg.

Szymanski's "in-residence" will begin on June 1, 2020, with video entries/movements released bi-monthly. The Overture is the shortest and most minimalist movement. The rest of the suite will be characters in dialogue — a total of 12.

The artist would like to thank the following performers:
Lisa Blas, David Carrier, Rob Colvin, Rachel Corbett, Paul Feinberg, Yuki Higashino, Joan Jonas, Simone Kearney, Celia Lury, Alex Robins, Sherman Sam, Barry Schwabsky, Willa Schwabsky, Sophie Seita, Di Sherlock, Lane Shi Otayonii, Xiaofu Wang and Matvei Yankelevich.

carol szymanski’s art spans many media, from sculpture and painting to video and performance. She has become particularly known for a series of sculptures in the form of invented musical instruments, and particularly brass horns, that she has been making since 1993. Szymanski was born in Charlotte, North Carolina, studied at the San Francisco Art Institute and the Whitney Museum Studio Program, and lives and works in New York. Her work has been exhibited internationally. Recent solo and collaborative exhibitions include Pareidolia, Totah Gallery, New York, NY, 2018; The Phonemophonic Alphabet Brass Band, Winter Garden, New York, NY, 2017 curated by John Schaefer WNYC New Sounds Live Series and “Emergency Eyewash” (with Barry Schwabsky), Tanja Grunert Gallery, New York, NY 2017; “A Distance as Close as It Can Be,” Elga Wimmer PCC, New York, NY 2016; “My Life is an Index,” Tanja Grunert Gallery, New York, NY 2015; and “Pissing Against the Wind, or, Sketches on the Mental Drain on the Dead Banker,” Guided by Invoices, New York, NY 2012, which have received press attention in Artcritical, Art Press, Brooklyn Rail, Hyperallergic, and Time Out New York. Between 2004 and 2014 she produced an email project, cockshut dummy, combining writing and images, excerpts from which have been republished in the art and literary periodicals including Atlantica and Vanitas as well as publishing cockshut offshoots, a 4-book series with Book Works, London. Space Sisters Press will publish cockshut dummy in 2020. She has been a recipient of numerous awards including the Rome Prize and a National Endowment for the Arts fellowship. Szymanski has collaborated with numerous composers and musicians including Ben Neill, Ekmeles Ensemble, Betsy McClelland, Dewey Redman, and Wadada Leo Smith.