"Sea-change" and "Fist Grips" embody the combination of performance art and paper works (books, prints, multiples, paper pulp, installations) that Knowles employs to question assumptions about art as narrative, didactic, controllable, and impassive. For "Sea-change," Knowles has plunged over 100 found objects (like shoes) in hand-made cotton paper pulp and installed them on the gallery's walls. For Knowles, these objects do not symbolize an idea buried in the transformed object itself, but represent the actual transformation. By locating ourselves within the element of transformation and not by the mere viewing the object, Knowles reinforces her work as a carrier of meaning and her concern that it isn't "to reflect and stabilize any art tradition, but to stabilize the person in life itself by bringing a material world to his/her hand." This action is exemplified in the "Fist Grip" performance that will be carried out on the opening night.

For "Fist Grips," Knowles reverses the paper pulp embedded shoes process by asking visitors to grab a piece of wet paper pulp and make a fist around it. The resulting Fist Grip is the "positive" created from the "negative" space of the empty hand. Each visitor's "Fist Grip" is then embedded with a string tag stating the name of an endangered animal. The small, white bone-line Fist Grip suggests both a physical connection to the endangered animal as well as the tactile relationship between a reader and a book. Instead of thumbing through pages and reading printed words, the "Fist Grip" viewer is informing both the physical and unique conceptual identity of the object through the "Fist Grip" process.

Knowles' acceptance, and indeed desire, for chance and randomness is exemplified by the arbitrary numbering and naming of her works and the gradual disintegration of those made of delicate natural fiber papers. When she uses a frame--as in a hat, shirt and pants embedded in white paper pulp--it is as a structural device rather than as an enclosure for the work. Her work is inclusive in that it invites everyone into the realm of art as daily living, process and personal connection.

Alison Knowles holds a unique place in the history of contemporary art. Beginning her career as a painter in the late 1950s, she soon became a major force in the development of Intermedia. She is an innovator in the creation of performance art and experimental books and print making. Knowles broke new ground during the lively years of the early l960s as one of the founders of Fluxus. In the early l970s Knowles taught as an Associate Professor at the California Institute of Arts with Allen Kaprow. Throughout the l980s and l990s, Knowles has continued to exhibit and perform in Europe, the United States and Asia. In l995-96 she was the recipient of the Documenta Professorship in Kassel, Germany. This is her fifth exhibition at the Emily Harvey Gallery.

Press Release: September 6, 1997