Linna Katana Throes (b. 1960) is a woman in her mid-to-late 50s. She has a son, Emery David Henson (b. 1991), who is in his mid-twenties. Emery is the child of Linna’s long marriage to Dolph Waral Henson (b. 1958). Linna and Dolph met in their early twenties and despite living on two separate continents quickly formed a relationship of a non-traditional sort. Culturally the two came from similar backgrounds of mixed Scandinavian ancestry. However, while Linna was born and raised immersed in a third culture, exposed to the cultures of her parents second hand and Dolph was raised traveling between the two countries of his parents’ origins. Still, the two barely adults found they had much in common, similar interests and beliefs that seemed to guarantee a good foundation for a life long partnership. Eventually they found themselves together in time and place, married, and living in the country of Linna’s birth although still far from the place (and culture) in which she - and for that matter he - was raised. In their early thirties Emery was born.
During his childhood Linna devoted herself to motherhood in a way her own mother had not. She was not a ‘helicopter mom’, always encouraging Emery’s independence, but she was a ‘full-time’ mom and head of the Henson household, putting her own interests and aspirations aside, or rather, tried to fit them into the small niches where they did not disturb the family unit she, Emery and Dolph had become. By the time Emery had reached his teens it had become apparent to Linna that not only was this not working, she had lost more of herself to the relationship with Dolph than she had realized. She loved their son tremendously. He was smart, very bright, self-aware, sensitive, an introvert, and, like his mother, tended to occasional bouts with anxiety and ‘over feeling’. Linna, realizing how incredibly unhappy she was in the situation she found herself in and facing a health crisis precipitated by the stress and those feelings, took her first steps towards correcting the course of her own life by returning to school. During the period she had first met Dolph Linna was studying for a degree in Art History. No artist herself, she was never one to get her hands dirty and could not ‘let herself go’ when faced with materials waiting to be transformed, she did possess a passion for art. In her early twenties she saw herself working in a museum, behind the scenes so to speak, after completing her degree. In her heart she knew the steps she’d need to take in order to follow that path, but then she met Dolph and decided to explore other paths instead. After all she naively thought she could always make her way back to the other path if she so desired. During the years prior to and throughout Emery’s childhood she had dabbled in studying related fields - including getting her hands messy trying to make art, which only confirmed that was not her ‘thing’. She never found her day down the museum path she had once considered, in place she found herself putting together small exhibits, working with local curators and gallery owners she had met through various channels. This work led to her realization that she wouldn’t mind some day having a small gallery of her own. So when she decided to return to school it was not to seek further training as an art historian but to take business classes at the local community college, capping it off with a second bachelor’s degree in business administration from the state university just prior to Emery heading off to begin his own college years far from home. Dolph, despite being cognizant of what was happening and at times discussing this with Linna, but ultimately was unable to take the action he needed to take to help widen the path Linna was constructing for herself in order to continue walking beside her; instead his continued attempts to ignore the trajectory of the relationship by trying to ‘reclaim’ and maintain the patterns and dynamics of the early years of their relationship had with Emery’s departure brought them to the point where the next step must be taken. They decided to amicably end this part of their relationship, knowing they would always be connected via their son and perhaps someday his own offspring. Dolph soon found his place back in the form of relationship he wanted as she made the life she desired.
This part of Linna’s biography is by no means unique, it is a story that is heard many times a day and has been for decades. In some regard we might even say this could make Linna a generic persona, much in the way Franz Ignatius Walsh might be thought of as being. However, that is a disservice to Linna, just as it would be to Franzi who we have come to know as an individual persona through his actions and interactions over the past 18 months. Like the story of how Franzi came to be a life-long studio assistant this information brings us to how Linna has entered my practice and the role she will take. How the story continues to unfold is, as usual, yet to be determined.
Returning to Linna, now her own woman, and the next step in her journey where she encountered a new obstacle in her path. Through most of her adult life she had very little income and no investments outside of those she had made in her family. She had reached the coordinates she had originally set her sights on eight years earlier but now it was time to rest the compass. She now had a business degree and a plan but lacked collateral for a traditional launch, and the recent crash in the economy thanks to Lehman Brothers, the burst of the housing bubble, and the like did not help. Fortunately she was able to find a job that could see her through and Emery on his visits had begun showing her the potential of the Internet and her Mac beyond emails. Not being able to afford a physical gallery space she did what many were doing in the late naughties - she took to online representation. At first this sufficed. She made sales and the artists in her stable were happy. Over the next decade when the opportunity arose to install work or curate an exhibition in a physical space she jumped at it. Otherwise she had begun to feel as if she were back in a role similar to the one she found herself in as CEO of Henson Family, Inc. She was no longer satisfied with being head of an online clearing house for artwork that moved onto a life as ‘just a picture on a wall’ or a ‘bronze on a pedestal’; a commodity mediated by a decorator and approved by the marketplace. Linna had begun asking herself how she move herself and the work out of this cycle by making the objects experiential for people beyond commodities purchased online, delivered to their door, unpacked, hung on the wall, momentarily admired and then ignored, all with a single click like on amazon.com? She had begun working in physical spaces with artist making work that not only did she find more interesting, but definitely did not fit this mold or business model. What becomes of the work when it leaves the realm of the artist and enters into the realm of the spectator? How does and what is the existence of the art when it is not just, or rather, no longer just a commodity, for the spectator? And most importantly, what role could Linna play in helping artists find answers to these and other questions they were asking? Like her, they needed space to explore the objects existence beyond their own hands and studio walls. Once more Emery showed her a possibility lurking in the virtual world.
At a group dinner after a day-long event a colleague had organized to present one of his new sculptures as a means of asking such questions - questions I also find myself (and Petra) asking with my (our) own work - I met Emery sitting across the table. He told me of his work in the tech industry and I told him of my painting and the research I was involved in with Petra, Franzi and the late Melusine. After which he began to tell me of his mother’s upcoming project: a rendered virtual exhibition space in which artists can try out ways of presenting their work when they lacked the physical space to do so. Upon realizing his mother and I live in the same small city he suggested Linna and I meet. Over coffee the other day Linna told me her story, what she had done and still hoped to do, and showed me the sketches of the virtual exhibition space she had given Emery to render for her - he’d promised them soon. I told her of my work and what Franzi, Petra and I are doing, showing her the latest paintings and how I want to play with their presentation. Although she has other artists waiting to exhibit in her new, virtual space she invited me to join in. That is part of the beauty of such a space, unlike a physical space multiple exhibits can happen simultaneously in the same space without overlapping each other. Of course, there is still the lack of the physical, the tactile, the true sensory experience of the object the spectator brings to the work but for now, as an artist lacking access to the physical space the work required for the questions I pose via its presentation this opportunity will allow me to imagine virtually what I am momentarily unable to explore in the actual. By doing this I hope to open the door to the actual space via the virtual space Linna will curate.
To be continued…
The origin of this persona, Linna ‘the curator’, is connected to the moment and position I currently find myself in. The recent collaborative painting [not yet titled] by myself, Franzi, and Petra, derived from the work Elegy [see postings] and like both it and Concertinaed, is double sided. I have a few ideas on how this work could be viewed so that both sides could be experienced simultaneously but lack the physical space in which to explore these options. Time recently spent in a small exhibition space designed for a specific artist to show his work to collectors and curators in outside of his studio space but not in a gallery space helped fuel my imagination to the type of space in which I would like to explore ‘painting as presentation’ in. Add to this my discussions of the past few years with colleagues on the uses of Photoshop in painting practices, along with their own use of it to virtually present their work in ways unavailable to them in actuality and the skill set of rendering architectural spaces of a person, not a persona, with whom I share physical space and discussed the possibilities a virtual exhibition space might offer to moving this work forward combined to the point where I have sketched out a virtual play space soon to be rendered and ready for the installation of the paintings that have been gathering in my studio space.
After conceiving the space in which I might try out the configuration of the paintings and while reading Thierry de Duve’s book Pictorial Nominalism: On Marcel Duchamp’s Passage from Painting to the Readymade (1991) I began to feel the as if another persona was knocking on the studio door. Admittedly, Melusine’s ‘death’ has left an absence in the space between easel and wall that remains immeasurable despite the role she continues to play in the work. The persona I found knocking at the door was Linna. Her presence as a curator of a virtual space seems to me logical. Both are tools that will be applied to my practice, extending my reach in a way that moves beyond myself. Eventually the physical work, the paintings, will move beyond the space of my studio and into other spaces where they will be handled and ‘curated’ by others. In the meantime Linna and the virtual exhibition space may serve as a model for this future state. As to the specifics of Linna’s character and her text, like Melusine, Petra and Franzi she is a conglomerate of fragments - factual and fictions - I have gathered from various locations over time. Like the other three she has a role extending beyond what she does by encompassing who she is. This might or could be addressed further in light of both de Duve’s writings along with Infinite Regress: Marcel Duchamp, 1910-1941 (1998) by David Joselit on the significance of the virgin, the bride, and the widow in the work of Duchamp.