Ted Lawson / Aether

Josee Bienvenu, New York

Until 5 Dec 2020

Aether  is the quintessence that permeates all things. One of the primordial deities in Greek mythology, Aether embodies the air of the upper sky, the bluey space breathed by the gods. The works in the exhibition – all within the spectrum of the blue color wavelength – explore the idea of an invisible world right below the world that we live in, not so much an underworld, but rather an ‘other’ dimension that is constantly affecting and reshaping our own reality.

A mirror with robotic eyes that follows the viewer, a bronze Satyr with a flute, a towering Minotaur made of cast sticks, paintings of labyrinths in 3D and a head detailed down to the level of skin pores with microscopic hair – the works in the show are the remnants of something invisible yet deeply present.  Highly detailed representations of reality, they are yet somehow very far away, as are the Greek mythologies transposed upon the artist’s personal mythos.  

In the current culture, the fantasy of the ‘other’ becomes all the more alive, even if sticks and rope are facsimiles of the real thing. Ideas about gender, race or sexuality are all up for revision in the name of morality, justice or righteousness. Collectively, we like to light things on fire and cheer together as they burn – a seductive form of mass hysteria like a stampede or riot. New monsters are continually chosen to be torn apart, cancelled and burned at the stake in the town square. The same stories are revisited over and over again from the question of who is a monster and who is a hero, down to the fundamental construction of gender roles and social hierarchy. 

Ted Lawson: “For Daedalus (Blue Robot #5), my goal was to create an object that could observe the viewer and convey an emotional response through a computer generated algorithm and robotic animated eyes. I wanted to know if the eyes alone had hooks deep enough to evoke a purely emotional response and cognitive connection with a machine. In greek mythology, Daedalus was the architect who was known to have created many Automatons for the King Minos. These entities were not merely robots or novelties, but were in fact designed to induce the spiritual awe of mythical creatures themselves. The best of which thought and felt for themselves as humans do. The Blue Robot is either playful or menacing depending on the viewer’s inner monologue. The eyes follow you, but they also communicate with multiple overlapping logic loops that obscure the code driving it. The unidentified robot is a reflection of the fantasies projected upon it by the observer. It is an illusory decoy with an algorithm keeping it from breaking character.”

The Effigies, cast in bronze or resin then painted or plated in metal, are made up of sticks as large as a tree trunk or as small as a twig bound together in rope. Their forms appear at once to be heroic, vulnerable, threatening and ridiculous. Whether it be in Ovid’s writing or Picasso’s paintings, the minotaur is depicted as a terrifying creature born with the head and tail of a bull and the body of a man. The violent, amoral and uncontrollable Minotaur is to be feared or given sacrificial offerings: in a sense he is the perfect embodiment of toxic masculinity. ‘New monsters’ are continually chosen to be torn apart, cancelled and burned at the stake in the town square. Society likes to light things on fire and cheer together as they burn. In the internet age, the fantasy of the other becomes all the more alive, even if the sticks and rope are facsimiles of the real thing. Ideas about gender, race, sexuality are all up for revision in the name of righteousness.

Ted Lawson: “With Cut Paper (sky), I was looking into the invisible lines between drawing, painting and sculpture. I have this very fussy 3D printer which makes seemingly endless pauses while it robotically cleans and registers itself before it can start building any actual objects. Often, while I wait for the printer to finish its busy work, I drift somewhere else in my mind. One day, I was holding a blue sheet of paper in one hand and a pair of sharp scissors in the other. I began mindlessly cutting, never cutting the paper completely in half, but continually subdividing and making deeper incursions until I could not seem to go any further without the whole thing falling apart. Little pieces would sometimes get clipped on the edges and drop away but the overall form of the sheet stayed intact. I taped the cut paper to the wall and stared at it for a long time. The hand of the scissor cuts was so specific yet there was a randomness that grabbed my attention. I scanned the paper into the computer and blew the image up to its maximum resolution. This was the basis for computer guided lasers to make those exact same cuts into a sheet of stainless steel which was painted with several layers of pigmented urethane and dead matte automotive clear coat. I wanted the final work to float slightly, a seemingly delicate and intuitive surface hovering off the wall. An object, a painting, a drawing. The shifting forms of the sky, continually divided by an invisible hand, yet never split in two, vulnerable and ephemeral looking, yet highly organized and logical in its forms and lines, monumental and timeless in its physical rendering.”

Ted Lawson: “The head is a detailed self-portrait that represents its subject down to the level of pores and peach fuzz in a pale violet-blue. Figurative sculptors of the renaissance, such as Michelangelo or Bernini, assumed the ancient Greek and Roman sculptures they were referencing had been devoid of color, when in fact they had been painted hyper-realistically. My intent was to take this misinterpretation to its furthest logical conclusion by using contemporary technology to create entirely monochromatic forms without resorting to the kinds of formal abstraction required in classical sculptures. The process began with a life-cast of my own head. The expressive details are cast in platinum silicone rubber and meticulously resculpted to breathe life back into a dead form. The eyes are hand painted and covered by clear lenses cast in urethane resin. The hair is synthetic and must be injected individually with a needle then shaped and formed with steam. I had been inspired by the sculptures of Brancusi, particularly his “sleeping muse” series. Each head is removed from its neck so that it becomes self contained.”

The Labyrinths begin as two dimensional models generated by a computer algorithm. The program constructs an actual drawing of a maze: an ancient structure of a puzzle and a perfect analogy for one’s life. Daedalus devised and built the labyrinth for King Minos to imprison the half-man, half-bull monster, known as the Minotaur. The maze is converted virtually into a three dimensional form. The image serves as the basis for an extruded relief which is CNC Milled into a solid sheet of medium density fiberboard. It is then sprayed with several layers of lacquer paint until the binder evaporates and only the pigment remains. The result is something both organic and digital.

The Satyr represents the inverse of the amoral Minotaur. Its form portrays a lustful, decadent and rapacious character.

Ted Lawson: “Walking around the woods near a lake in upstate NY, I look for specific sticks that have fallen on the ground. I arrange them into a fluid composition, then I cast the sticks in bronze or resin, a highly precise craft. A figure must have a certain amount of clarity to it, to evoke a character and yet it has to stay loose and almost abstract. The cast rope adds a level of detail to the line work and creates the illusion of being bound together. Some figures get plated in different metals, others are painted colors.”

Born in Brookline, MA, in 1970, Ted Lawson lives in Brooklyn, New York. He received his BFA in Sculpture from the University of the Arts in Philadelphia, PA. Often using technology as a regressive analogy to describe aspects of human existence, his work is an ongoing investigation of the male psyche, questioning notions of institutional privilege and asymmetrical power dynamics.