LYNNE HENDRICK AND RICHARD KEELY: Too Thick to Chew/The Aphasic Works

Joseph Clayes III Gallery

LYNNE HENDRICK AND RICHARD KEELY

Too Thick to Chew/The Aphasic Works

January 12–February 20, 1993

San Diego-based artists Lynne Hendrick and Richard Keely collaborated on an original on-site installation at the Athenaeum. The exhibition encompassed the entire interior of the building and addressed the fundamental principles on which a music and arts library is based: the collection, storing, and preservation of ideas, words, sounds, and images. Aphasia is defined as the loss of the ability to use or understand words. In today’s fast-paced society we are often overexposed to such an incredible volume of information that one can feel overwhelmed, indeed, almost threatened, by the written word. Yet this form of communication is an essential means by which a library records the ideas, history, and philosophy of mankind. The artists stated that “the personal and experiential nature of an artistic endeavor is difficult, if not impossible, to transfer to printed material without sacrificing that indefinable quality that designates a work of art.” Through this work Hendrick and Keely attempted to “re-sensitize” the very elements that become desensitized during a library’s process of preservation and explored the fundamental principles of the preservation of ideas.