{"id":67213,"date":"2023-03-15T16:30:46","date_gmt":"2023-03-15T22:30:46","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/artistsofutah.org\/15Bytes\/?p=67213"},"modified":"2023-03-16T16:36:28","modified_gmt":"2023-03-16T22:36:28","slug":"malachi-wilsons-art-challenges-the-viewer-to-look-and-see-more-deeply","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/artistsofutah.org\/15Bytes\/malachi-wilsons-art-challenges-the-viewer-to-look-and-see-more-deeply\/","title":{"rendered":"Malachi Wilson’s Art Challenges the Viewer to Look and See More Deeply"},"content":{"rendered":"
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Malachi Wilson’s \u201cThe Artist is Present\u201d at Finch Lane Gallery. Image credit: Geoff Wichert<\/p><\/div>\n

Malachi Wilson\u2019s gallery card initially challenges the viewer who seeks an explanation of his art\u2019s purpose. With careful reading, however, eventually it does make sense. \u201cThese works use distinct mediums to approach the footprints and forms of different natural objects, including the human body,\u201d it says. Meaning what? How about the way a musical instrument is designed not only to produce particular sounds, but to work with the body part or parts it was intended to take advantage of? Wilson has built a machine of steel, wood and cast plaster, augmented with analogues of muscles (an electric motor), joints (levers), and the nervous system (a cam and an intervalometer, like the one that turns windshield wipers off and on with various pauses between swipes). Called \u201cThe Artist is Present\u201d \u2014 presumably the reference invoking a recent performance of the same name by Marina Abramovi\u0107 \u2014 the result is a model of how a drum is played: one that clearly displays the characteristics \u2014 the \u201cfootprints and forms\u201d \u2014 of the drum and the arm it was designed to be beaten by. In case the artistry seems questionable, the drumbeat it periodically produces is based on the artist\u2019s own heartbeat.<\/h4>\n

Nearby, laid out on a pedestal, a collection of sticks a gardener might have saved to use for stakes all but encourage viewers to think they can be taken in with a glance. On closer inspection, though, they are seen to be meticulously cut and shaped from lengths of steel. Stems and branches were invented by plants, with help from evolution and the pressure of gravity, to do a job they performed for millions of years before humans invented steel to do a range of jobs, including those still done by plant parts of infinitely replaceable\u00a0 <\/span>and naturally decomposing wood. If there\u2019s a pattern emerging here, it might be that Wilson would like his audience to join him in looking more closely and thinking more deeply about the naturally-occurring things we encounter every day.\u00a0<\/span><\/h4>\n