Flatland Reimagined…A Romance of the Line and the Dot

Paul Kolker presents Flatland Reimagined…A Romance of the Line and the Dot, an exhibition of light sculptures and paintings of dots overlaid with lines in the form of grids, curves, squares and squiggles that suggest a melee of dimensionality and gestural movement; as in the installation view above. Kolker, the artist, curator and producer, uses abstractions of the line and the dot as an experiment in perception.

As in forty-five prior solo shows which Kolker has produced and self curated, Flatland Reimagined, as an exhibition and through each of its works, has become the subject for an experiment in perception in which each viewer is the measuring instrument. The artist opines that humankind’s so-called culture of the visual, performing and literary arts is regulated by the brain’s unique archiving capacities and its synthesis of feelings with cognition resulting in what is called perception… much like that cerebral balancing act of heart and head espoused in Thomas Jefferson’s love letter, replete with feelings and reason; or even a romance of love beyond reason; and the subject for Kolker’s monograph, Of Heart and Art, a literary work by the artist, in progress.

Inspired by Edwin A. Abbott’s 1884 novel, Flatland: A Romance of Many Dimensions, Kolker self-curates and creates the art for this exhibition under the umbra of the artist’s wholly reductionistic thesis statement which reimagines, using both abstraction and minimalism, a hypothetical twenty-first century world in which, according to Kolker, “a dot may be a universe and a universe a dot.” Scientific reductionism, Kolker explains, uses microscopic, molecular and subatomic components to define the physical laws of macroscopic phenomena such as thermodynamics, for example. Thus, the minimalist and abstract paintings in this show are dispositive as reductions of that macroscopic narrative, A Romance of the Line and the Dot. A line is an iteration of dots; or as Abbott wrote more than a century ago, “if a Point moves Northward, and leaves a luminous wake, what name would you give to the wake?…A straight line.”

Although Kolker’s works regularly employ materials and methods derived from current digital technologies, new media and fractal geometry, they remind us that although we live in many dimensions, our present-day world- view is not much different from that of Abbott’s two-dimensional Flatland of more than a century ago. Kolker’s reimagined Flatland is merely a modern-day Flatland of television, computer, cell phone and e-book displays on flat-screens, in addition to digital print and other recordings. For Kolker, it is the dot, representing the pixels and particles of the flat-screens, which represents the microscopic reductionism tool which enables our perception, (i.e. feelings such as intuition plus understanding), of contemporary string theory, the empiricisms of particle physics or Flatland Reimagined.

Kolker also cites to publications in the neuro- and behavioral-science literature regarding the physiology of perception, demonstrating uptake areas of high metabolic activity through special glucose-nucleotide tracer scans which indicate that the visual, auditory and position-related (proprioceptive and vestibular) sensory apparatuses link with both the cognitive and empathic cerebral regions; as well as also linking with memory archival regions and with the neurohumoral and autonomic centers in the brain-stem. Furthermore, the works in this show, as well as the exhibition itself as a curated work of art, may evoke feelings which trigger the viewer’s insights, imagination and intuition; generate vibrations, otherwise called vibes; promote cognition, or even recognition based on prior experiences, learned biases or prejudices. Or, perhaps, in spite of the impracticability of the pathetic fallacy of Kolker’s modern-day romance narrative of two inanimate Euclidian symbols, the line and the dot, painted on canvas triggers the empathic and cognitive stimuli necessary for the viewer’s perception; as does the illusion of recursive reflections within the light sculptures in the exhibition. On the other hand, the viewer’s perception of the exhibition, in terms of feelings and understanding, is dependent upon her dialogue with the show and its works. As viewer, she alone has become the measuring instrument for this experiment in perception.

Paul Kolker (b. 1935) is a New York based artist with doctorate degrees in medicine and law. He is Emeritus Chief of Cardiothoracic Surgery at North Shore/ LIJ Glen Cove Hospital, having practiced cardiothoracic surgery on Long Island from 1969 to 2013. In October 2001 Kolker moved his Long Island studio to Studio 601, now at the PAUL KOLKER collection, in the Chelsea art district so that he could work with other artists who assist him in his art production, much like his physician assistants, residents and fellows have assisted him as a heart surgeon; and also develop his curatorial skills in orchestrating and directing his exhibitions in his own gallery spaces. Flatland Reimagined…A Romance of the Line and the Dot is Kolker’s forty-sixth solo exhibition.

Twenty five works, paintings and sculpture, are on view in Paul Kolker’s exhibition, Flatland Reimagined…A Romance of the Line and the Dot, at the PAUL KOLKER collection, 511 West 25th Street in Chelsea from January 22, 2015 through February 21, 2015. For further information, please email info@paulkolker.com.