Opening Reception:
Thursday, Oct 17, 7:00 – 10:00 pm

Gallery Hours:
Saturday and Sunday, 12:00 pm – 5:00 pm and by appointment

Special closing performance with HECUBA and Bret Nicely Sunday Oct. 27 starting at 7 pm

Human Resources is pleased to announce a new show by John Knuth: Fading Horizon. This all-encompassing installation will utilize 1,000 pounds of sugar, light bulbs and Mylar thermo blankets.

The floor of the gallery will be covered with Mylar thermo blankets, light bulbs and mounds of sugar. As the light bulbs heat the sugar, the sugar caramelizes and creates small volcanoes which mark the blankets underneath. The gallery fills with sweet smelling smoke that is at first enticing but soon becomes overwhelming. Eventually the blankets are hung on the walls, displaying the minimal abstract compositions left behind by the caramelized sugar. These compositions change over time as the material slowly drips down the blankets and on to the floor.

Fading Horizon is a commanding fusion of material, sculpture, painting and installation work, which evokes ideas of climate change and entropy. Knuth is inspired by sugar as a material with infinite sculptural possibilities. It can be diluted in water, crystalized, eaten, caramelized or molded into forms. The pure white color of sugar gives the sense of a blank canvas with the deep brown caramel rivulets providing a stark contrast. The show explores the idea of chance, uncertainty and change as an amorphous, transcendent place.

John Knuth’s work engages base-level alchemy. He often employs simple materials that transcend their base quality. He has fed hundreds of thousands of houseflies paint, which they regurgitate on to canvas to make delicate abstract compositions. His work explores the physical quality and poetic meaning of materials.

John Knuth has most recently exhibited his work in a solo show at SOD Gallery in Copenhagen, Denmark. His fly paintings were featured in a video entitled “Made in Los Angeles” on MOCAtv which quickly went viral and was picked up by the Huffington Post, BoingBoing.net, Gizmodo.com, Wired, among other news outlets. He has shown work at Another Year in LA, International Art Objects, Greene Exhibitions, The Santa Monica Museum of Art, LACMA, LACE and Cohen Gallery in Los Angeles, and Land of Tomorrow in Louisville, KY. He has show internationally in Denmark, Germany, Iceland, Sweden and England. Knuth was born in 1978 in Minneapolis, MN and received an MFA from USC and a BFA from the University of Minnesota.