Artists

Richard Sides

Press release

Something draws me into this stuff sort of impulsively like eavesdropping, meaning that there is some breached membrane of privacy, a disclosure in it. Like seeing into someone's apartment—and there is no reason to look away. Why look away, why turn the camera off, why cut? But my own life moves at its own pace which limits my availability to sit around watching for whatever's happening. Nevertheless I sense a definite pull from within. I make time for it. Part of it is that as a viewer of artworks, films, inanimate objects, I am in control. It’s me who enables them to suck me in. I can turn away at any time. And that makes continuing more appealing. It kind of feels like reading a diary. (That does not sound appealing to me at all—trying to decipher the handwriting, the references, and stomach the legit breach of privacy. But every time I’ve read a diary I have found it pretty absorbing to the point that I get sore from standing there holding still reading for too long.) The unpredictability of this stuff is attractive for sure. And it takes time. You have to let it burn. You can’t really get it just by looking at it. It’s not a stop sign. There is a lot there that's not even symbolic at all, not communicative or linguistic. And even if there is a linguistic element like “National Association” or something, it can’t be determined immediately what that is. Is it a label? A direction? Is it talking about what’s happening in the room? The flag-show of colors? The redaction? The claustrophobia? The surveilling? 

Excerpt from exhibition booklet.