MK Guth | Touching Matter | Viewing Room
MK Guth, 5000 Pages on Love, 2021, 5 artists books: paper and book covers, interactive, dimensions variable
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Viewer participating in 5000 Pages on Love, 2021.
Installation view of Touching Matter, by MK Guth.
Elizabeth Leach Gallery is pleased to present Touching Matter by MK Guth, an exhibition of new and recent works that highlight the artist’s interest in social rituals and the creation of circumstances that focus one’s attention. Guth’s multidisciplinary practice includes video, photography, sculpture, performance, and interactive exchange-based projects.
Detail image of 5000 Pages on Love, 2021.
This series of works feature objects with implied performativity and the personal reflections that result from participatory engagement. A table is located at the center of the exhibit, and on the table are five artist-designed books titled 5,000 Pages on Love. Individual visitors are encouraged to sit and write answers to questions included inside the books, transforming the gallery into an intimate space for contemplation.
Detail image of Love Flags, 2021.
MK Guth, Dinner for a Camus Flower, 2021, perfect bound book, wood pedestal, perfume bottle and wood shelf, interactive, wood shelf: 10 x 16", Edition of 3, 1AP
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Additional works include wall installations of the artist’s menus, handmade books of instructions for communal meals as well as related ink drawings that collectively reiterate the ways that objects possess memory and meaning.
Hear MK Guth discuss one of her recent participatory pieces, Dinner for a Camas Flower, and learn more about the production of the dinners and their corresponding books.
ABOVE: Detail images inside Dinner for a Camus Flower, 2021.
ABOVE: Ink drawings related to Dinner for a Camus Flower, 2021.
MK Guth, Dinner for Getting Over It or At Least Through It, 2019, perfect bound book, ceramic bowl, bound burn pages, matches and wood shelf, interactive, wood shelf: 10 x 16", Edition of 2, 1AP
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ABOVE: Participants activating Dinner to Tell a Joke at Cristin Tierney gallery in 2019
The works are not simply instructions or commands: they are offerings, allowing space for viewers to set their own table.
– JOSEPHINE ZARKOVICH, 60 Inch Center, 2019
MK Guth, Dinner to Tell a Joke, 2019, perfect bound book, 6 porcelain cups with holding chips and wood shelf, interactive,
wood shelf: 10 x 27", Edition of 2, 1AP
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Installation view of Touching Matter, by MK Guth.
Learn more about MK Guth’s participatory projects
2008 WHITNEY BIENNIAL | TIES OF PROTECTION | MK GUTH
Detail image of Ties of Protection, 2008, in process.
LAS VEGAS, NV | BEST WISHES, 2011 | MK GUTH
In the fall of 2011, Guth was invited to be an artist in residence at The Cosmopolitan hotel in Las Vegas, Nevada. Her exhibition there was a 20-day performance in which she would invite passers by to write down their hopes and wishes on pieces of ribbon which would then be braided into her hair. She wore the ever-growing ribbons in her hair throughout the entirety of the exhibition, and toward the end her braids measured over 300 feet each in length and weighed nearly 200 pounds collectively. In the enacting of the performance Guth transformed the role of the protagonist. Here, the Rapunzel-like Guth is not saved by a prince, but instead helps to relieve others by carrying the burden of their desires.
2012 EXHIBITION CATALOG | MK GUTH | THE ART GYM
MK Guth’s works brilliantly and relentlessly strip away the register of habitual presumptions and consumptions concerning art and artworks, to interrogate this very taking place of art.
– THOMAS ZUMMER, MK Guth, 2012 Exhibition Catalog
LEFT: Read more about MK Guth’s art practice in her 2012 artist catalog published by The Art Gym at the former Marylhurst University. This hardcover book contains four chapters featuring essay contributions that unpack and examine a variety of Guth’s interactive works.
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