Kristin Jones and Andrew Ginzel
Parenthesis
Parenthesis is a large-scale installation by Kristin Jones and Andrew Ginzel made specifically for the south building entrance of Baird Center. It uses the volume of space overhead and the floor space below to integrate the viewer into the entire work, and by extension, the building as a whole.
There are six separate elements to the work:
The Helix- an incremented, suspended spiral.
The Vector- a cone mirroring the observer.
The Vortex: The terrazzo floor.
The Locus: The image of Wisconsin at the epicenter.
The Enigma: A suspended rock and cosmos within.
The Infinity: The disc that hovers above the observer.
The epicenter of the work is The Locus, the image of Wisconsin in the middle of The Vortex.
Ginzel says, “It is a little like Dorothy in Oz, coming to the beginning of a yellow brick road. There is a point where only one person can be.”
The Helix is the suspended spiral accelerating upward toward The Infinity. The gilded cone that mirrors the observer below is The Vector, and The Enigma is the floating rock that rests outside the system.
Jones says,” It’s important to interject with something that throws it off; that creates tension.”
Ginzel says the contradiction between the gold material (The Vector) and the dark, hollow disc (The Infinity) becomes ‘the earth and the universe at the same time.’
Jones says she sees the floor (The Vortex) as the past or the depth behind you.
“The installation is an attempt to measure and understand what is up there, what is beyond, and of course it is possible,” Jones said. “When a person stands on the image of Wisconsin, they are embraced by a double vortex: the ground is spiraling downward and the sky is moving upward to the point of infinity.”
Jones compares The Vortex to a reverse telescope.
She says, “The cone draws the image upward into infinity. Hence, the viewer becomes a participant in the work.”
Ginzel says, “Put in the spot, they [the viewers] are implicated, becoming part of the work and it is their moment, their existence which is making it all happen.”
Jones concludes, “By saying Parenthesis, we really mean the moment of your life. You are suspended between past and future. This is the moment, and we don’t have much more than that. There is not any tangible promise of some kind of ascension, and you really don’t even know your past.”
Parenthesis is part of the art from the original Burke Collection donated to the Midwest Express Center in 1998.
About Kristin Jones and Andrew Ginzel
Kristin Jones and Andrew Ginzel have worked collaboratively since 1985 on many commissioned private and public projects, as well as museum and gallery exhibitions internationally. Major works include Metronome on Union Square and Oculus throughout the World Trade/Chambers Street subway station, Axiom at the University of Central Florida’s Physical Sciences Center and Appositio at the University of Colorado’s Visual Arts Complex.
Awards and honors include the Rome Prize, Indo-American Fellowship, the Pollock Krasner Foundation, the Louis Comfort Tiffany Foundation, a Bessie, Art Matters, Yaddo, MacDowell, Bellagio: the Rockefeller Foundation, the Fulbright Program and twice the National Endowment for the Arts.
Kristin Jones maintains both studio and public practices, working collaboratively across disciplines to create site-specific, time-based projects that frame natural phenomena against the built environment. She was a member of the team that designed the master plan for Hudson River Park. Jones has devoted more than 16 years to the founding of the Rome-based non-profit TEVERETERNO. By partnering with a treasury of artists, colleagues and the City of Rome to raise awareness of the Tiber River, she directed and facilitated programs for its protection and revitalization.
Jones holds a BFA in Sculpture from the Rhode Island School of Design and an MFA from the Yale School of Art and Architecture. She is the winner of three Fulbright Fellowships and is a Fellow of the American Academy in Rome. She is currently based in New York City.
Adrew Ginzel has created a diverse range of site-specific works throughout the world for museums, galleries, architectural spaces and performance. Often working in collaboration with artist Kristin Jones, large-scale works in Manhattan include Metronome on Union Square, and Oculus throughout the World Trade / Chambers Street Subway station, in the Kansas City and Tampa Airports and public buildings nationwide. Awards include the Rome Prize, the Bessie, three NEA grants, Pollock Krasner and the Louis Comfort Tiffany Foundations, Indo-American, NYSCA, NYFA and Rockefeller Foundation fellowships.
Ginzel teaches at the School of Visual Arts and lives and works in New York City.
