Clint Paugh: Measured Tolerances/ Compound Differences
By Fred Camper
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I’ve seen few better examples of this trend than Clint Paugh’s nine new works at I Space. Born in Wichita in 1970 and a recent graduate of the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, Paugh now lives in Kansas City, Missouri. Using processes common to carpentry–one of many kinds of work he’s done–Paugh examines random variations and human mistakes. Measuring #1: Attempting to Draw 1″ Lines Freehand consists of 20 two-by-fours mounted horizontally in two equal columns on the wall; on each two-by-four Paugh has drawn five groups of ten vertical lines and recorded the measurement of each line next to it. Compounded Differences #2: Effects on One Mile consists of seven lines drawn in red chalk on the wall, all but one extending from the ceiling nearly to the floor. Written in pencil alongside are calculations showing how much error would be introduced if one measured a mile in foot-long lines each of which was short by an eighth of an inch: the mile would be short 55 feet, the combined length of Paugh’s seven lines.
Paugh says, “The work I do now is about the work that I do.” For Measure, Cut: One Hundred 12″ Cuts he sawed two-by-fours into 100 one-foot lengths and laid them in a line on the floor. He ruled each cut first with a tape measure, so the small variations in length are the result of imprecise measurements and his placement of the wood in the saw–which he could have set to repeat but chose not to. He emphasizes his process by writing “measure, cut” on the wall 100 times.
Like Paugh, Linnenbrink precisely constructs containers for randomness, calculating his forms to intensify the viewer’s perception of variations. And like Paugh’s titles, the drips at the bottom reveal the artist’s process. Where many abstract paintings present images so “perfect” that a tiny alteration would throw them out of balance, Linnenbrink’s looser sense of form allows equally successful variants.
In the Red Room, whose title refers to Matisse’s famous The Red Studio, is made up mostly of red orange stripes. Between them are pale gray floral fabric patterns, which might continue behind several stripes before yielding to another pattern, also pale gray. The stripes occasionally curve, widen, or narrow, further undercutting any idea of perfection, suggesting instead a poorly designed manufacturing process or handmade variations. If the patterns were continuous or brighter, one might see them as representing a primal source, but because they change and everything is rendered shadowlike by the wax, neither visual field dominates the other. Their very incompleteness seems to indicate that primacy is no longer an issue, and that the death of hegemonic thinking is Linnenbrink’s true subject.
