Matt Sellars, Kraft Duntz at Henry Art Gallery

May 11, 2017

Fun. No Fun. Kraft Duntz featuring Dawn Cerny
Lower Level Galleries
March 04, 2017 — September 10, 2017

Fun. No Fun., Installation at The Henry Art Gallery, March 2017

Fun. No Fun., Installation at The Henry Art Gallery, March 2017

The Henry is pleased to present Fun. No Fun., a commissioned work by Kraft Duntz, the Seattle-based artist/architect team of David Lipe, Matt Sellars, and Dan Webb, in collaboration with artist Dawn Cerny. The installation occupies the large open volume of the Henry’s lower level gallery and investigates how space and memory mediate experience; just as desire and lived experience affect the spaces we build, imagine, and occupy. This work locates itself somewhere between sculpture and architecture and considers states of togetherness and aloneness, purity and impurity, aspiration and pragmatism.

The title Fun. No Fun. refers not only to the range of positive and negative emotions that are linked to the genesis and execution of any given project, including the many discussions to arrive at a final form, but also to the harder aspects of exhibition making, including navigating institutional limitations and physical and material constraints.

Fun. No Fun. is an installation composed of built forms and voids that together appear to offer options but no apparent resolution—much like the world we live in, where the opportunity for action appears endless but is often thwarted by closed systems and networks. Through its very form, Fun. No Fun. reflects the inherent contradiction that exists between exhilaration, expectation, and disappointment in the experience of art and life. It suggests that navigating this persistent conundrum is at the discretion of every individual, regardless of larger processes that explicate and validate contemporary art and the world we live in.