{"id":26764,"date":"2014-10-07T00:24:13","date_gmt":"2014-10-07T06:24:13","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/artistsofutah.org\/15Bytes\/?p=26764"},"modified":"2018-11-27T09:59:21","modified_gmt":"2018-11-27T15:59:21","slug":"jason-manley-at-cuac","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/artistsofutah.org\/15Bytes\/jason-manley-at-cuac\/","title":{"rendered":"Jason Manley at CUAC"},"content":{"rendered":"

<\/a><\/p>\n


\n \"jason10\"
\n<\/a><\/p>\n

From his MFA thesis experience at the University of Arizona, Jason Manley says he learned the distinction between what can be represented physically and what remains ineffable \u2014 what transcends the structure, the material, and, in the most literal sense, the concrete. Over the period of several months, Manley documented his day-to-day experiences in writing while adding a layer of paint to represent each. Over the course of the month, the layer of paint was thick, purely substance, one layer lost to the last, while the reality of the memories in writing remained.<\/p>\n

Ten years later, his current show at CUAC is aptly titled \u201cPaved Forest,\u201d and in it Manley draws a metaphorical parallel between the literal realms of an actual forest and the cognitive forest that is the consciousness of the mind.\u00a0 Parallels are being drawn here between what can be defined in literal, absolute terms, and what transcends that to the more abstract, intangible states of being.<\/p>\n

When the visitor to CUAC enters the physicality of the gallery space, encroaching upon the artificial world created by the artist, they become the mythical figure lost in the wood, a cognitive forest that generates thought and hopefully leads to truth.\u00a0 There are conundrums along the way, but these are a good thing, leading to the exercising and illumination of the mind.<\/p>\n

\u201cDouble Gulp Light\u201d lights the way into this paved forest of the mind.\u00a0 Perched upon some rock-like formation made out of concrete, a plastic \u201cDouble Big Gulp\u201d cup purchased from a 7-Eleven convenience store, has been turned upside down, painted white, and lit from within. This rock, at least six feet in the air, is held by five strong and straight rods of iron that only at the bottom begin to take turns and irregular curls and shoot off into unpredictable and various directions.\u00a0 What is the forest traveler to make of this?\u00a0 Plastic.\u00a0 Consumerism.\u00a0 Throw-away culture?\u00a0 The most elemental fabric of the capitalist western world might be the \u201cDouble Big Gulp.\u201d It stands upon the foundation of our consumerist society\u2026 from Walmart to Gucci, from Costco to Whole Foods, from AT&T to Rocky Mountain Power. One rod might stand for money, the other power, the next greed, the other lust, the last desire. That is the physical and the tangible, or oneway of seeing it clearly.\u00a0 What we don\u2019t see is reality. We don\u2019t see the underpaid mother of four doing a double shift at Walmart, we don\u2019t see the leather worker working with his hands for 12 hours without rest for Gucci, or the monopolistic box stores crushing small businesses. That is reality that cannot be seen and transcends physicality.<\/p>\n

Around the bend on a large drywall is what at first appears to be a gargantuan record label made out of stone lettering and identifying a Schumann symphony \u201cSchumann (record label).\u201d\u00a0 And indeed it is a gargantuan record label made out of stone lettering identifying a Schumann symphony.\u00a0 And with exacting precision, the stone-concrete has replicated every detail, except there is no label, and no record, only wall. Here, the visitor is found awestruck.\u00a0 Thinking to that very symphony.\u00a0 Thinking of the very full emotional resonant sounds that would be heard that take the mind on emotional journeys experienced cognitively.\u00a0 Nothing but pure sound and each time listened to, another emotional, cognitive journey.\u00a0 But here is stone, concrete: bold, rough, ugly even, dry and raw rock, made out of concrete, with crevices and imperfections.\u00a0 This is the tangible remnant left of the loved symphony and all there is to be found of it.\u00a0 Is this reality?\u00a0 Is this bitter pill that will soon crumble and decay reality, or is the emotional, cognitive experience, albeit different every time, enchanting and pure, is that which transcends this rubble, reality?<\/p>\n

The visitor almost stumbles over a rock in the path. But this is no ordinary rock, but the like-material of stone-concrete, made into a structure of letters, and these letters spell out words, and these words spell out a phrase, repeated over and over again: \u201cOut of Sight. Out of Mind\u201d Out of sight, out of mind, out of sight, out of mind. The letters are carefully stacked into a thin wall. Often they are turned upside down. This seems puzzling: a phrase so nebulous \u2014 out of sight, out of mind \u2014 repeated over and over, often haphazardly, in this wall of ugly raw rock-cement.\u00a0 What is the point to it all?\u00a0 Here, robbed of any meaning it might have, the visitor suspects this wall represents the basest materiality of this already banal phrase.\u00a0 With its crude rendering and crude assemblage, the visitor is reassured, and is sure that this, even though it seems it could weather the sands of time, is no reality, that this is purely substance, and any traces of reality are to be found in language, in the utility of \u201cout of sight, out of mind,\u201d the meanings transported, and not this stasis, this state of semi-permanent decay that will ultimately see its end. The reality is in the language.\u00a0 That is where the truth is to be found.<\/p>\n

Now in the heart of the forest, the visitor is obscured by an assemblage of word compilations, made out of the same essential stone-concrete. But there seems to be some rhyme or reason here, even if the assemblages are disparate and detached from the other\u2026 somehow the visitor feels attached by the reason and logic to be discovered by meaning alone, the very reality of it, even if their stone prison is only an avatar to their display, holding them captive in the heart of this cognitive forest. The first of the \u201cPaved Forest (sculpture series)\u201d reads \u201cThe tangle of the forest in his hair. The silence of the woodland.\u201d\u00a0 To the visitor, even on what looks like a crumbling slab of pumice, this evokes poetic thought.\u00a0 The next reads, \u201cTo flee full speed through the forest across fields to house windows.\u201d\u00a0 This is very transporting to the visitor, who can feel the reality of the meaning transcending the ugliness of the stone-concrete shell that holds its beauty. The next is astonishing and makes the visitor gasp for air: \u201cAn empty stream, a great silence, an impenetrable forest the air was warm thick heavy sluggish.\u201d These words resonate with such a real power within the visitor; here in the density of the forest, that no stone-concrete could compete with\u2026 that is only ephemera\u2026 this is reality.\u00a0 Further: \u201clays open before the mind terrified depths trembles before the gaze like a dizzy forest and in which one hears the crackling of dead branches\u2026\u201d Now a terror is beginning to seize the visitor so real has this reality begun to close in on the mind in this cognitive forest.\u00a0 Finally, \u201cthat wild heathen Nature of the forest never subjugated by human law nor illuminated by higher truth.\u201d\u00a0 Now the visitor feels the apex of the journey has been reached.\u00a0 That the truth of the language of the reality of the forest has been learned and the visitor is calmed.<\/p>\n

But before the visitor can leave there is one more assemblage.\u00a0 It reads: \u201ccolossal thicket that is to say something solitary as a tomb as impenetrable as a forest as peopled as a city quivering like a nest somber like a cathedral fragrant like a bouquet.\u201d The visitor has learned the reality beyond the seemingly immutable stone-concrete substances that are only there to serve the purpose of reality. And that reality is universality, all consuming, all truthful.<\/p>\n

In the clearing in the wood, the visitor comes upon a large red box.\u00a0 \u201cForest (Interior)\u201d is where there is to be found reality.\u00a0 It seems unprepossessing, like a Coca-Cola machine with no signage, completely quotidian and the like-substance of \u201cDouble Gulp Light.\u201d\u00a0 Yet the visitor is compelled by a light from behind to look inside.\u00a0 The visitor looks up, looks down, looks from side to side and from every angle, and all that can be seen is eternity, eternity everywhere.\u00a0 Here lies the truth, and that is the secret of the reality of the forest that transcends all, even the forest itself.<\/p>\n

\n
\n
\n
\n \"\"
\n <\/a>\n <\/dt>\n<\/dl>\n
\n
\n
\n \"\"
\n <\/a>\n <\/dt>\n<\/dl>\n
\n
\n
\n \"\"
\n <\/a>\n <\/dt>\n<\/dl>\n
\n
\n
\n \"\"
\n <\/a>\n <\/dt>\n<\/dl>\n<\/div>\n

Jason Manley: Paved Forest<\/em>\u00a0is at\u00a0CUAC<\/a>\u00a0in Salt Lake City through October 11<\/span>.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Here lies the truth, and that is the secret of the reality of the forest that transcends all, even the forest itself. <\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":850,"featured_media":26784,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[19,14],"tags":[923,2798],"class_list":["post-26764","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-exhibition_reviews","category-visual_arts","tag-cuac","tag-jason-manley"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/artistsofutah.org\/15Bytes\/wp-content\/uploads\/2014\/10\/jason10.jpg","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_likes_enabled":true,"publishpress_future_action":{"enabled":false,"date":"2026-04-24 23:18:51","action":"change-status","newStatus":"draft","terms":[],"taxonomy":"category","extraData":[]},"publishpress_future_workflow_manual_trigger":{"enabledWorkflows":[]},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/artistsofutah.org\/15Bytes\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/26764","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/artistsofutah.org\/15Bytes\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/artistsofutah.org\/15Bytes\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/artistsofutah.org\/15Bytes\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/850"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/artistsofutah.org\/15Bytes\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=26764"}],"version-history":[{"count":7,"href":"https:\/\/artistsofutah.org\/15Bytes\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/26764\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":40476,"href":"https:\/\/artistsofutah.org\/15Bytes\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/26764\/revisions\/40476"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/artistsofutah.org\/15Bytes\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/26784"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/artistsofutah.org\/15Bytes\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=26764"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/artistsofutah.org\/15Bytes\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=26764"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/artistsofutah.org\/15Bytes\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=26764"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}