On Thursday [2/8] at 5pm Kyla Kegler will give an artist talk in conjunction with her exhibition at the Handwerker Gallery Relationships don’t finish, they change [January 25 – March 7] RDFTC is a body of work comprising music videos, objects, and paintings that developed from six songs which were initially written for two different performances: Mountains (2022) and The Frontier (2023).
The songs were inspired by conversations with untrained performers who participated in those pieces, responding to my existential questions about longing, motivation, and purpose in the post-internet, transapocalyptic grind. These conversations shared a sense that people missed interdependency, connection to the practical tasks of physical survival, and nature.
Kegler developed a series of choreographic music videos for the songs, thinking about the aesthetics of adjusting (an act of searching for comfort), and nostalgia as a haze-machine (that remembering the past as better interferes with making the present good).
She later translated the six titles — Death-bo-beath; Unsatisfied; I Got My Cult; Neon Purple Glow; Everything has already happened; Sub Song — into objects and paintings, thinking about tactile childhood memories of drawing with crayon on wooden furniture, and agreeing to believe in magical suggestions like Santa and safety.
This project includes contributions by her collective of performers including Alex Kerr, Bello Bello, Casey Sampson, Charlie Finan, Danny Gray, Devin Finan, Eve Johnstone, Gabriella Victoria, Jarrett Szymanski, Kayleah Aldrich, Lauren Lerner, Lydia Kegler, Meghan Arnold, Nicolee Jimenez, Natalie Hayes, Nolan Barry, Suzanna Vaupen, TD, Ülgen Kılıç, Zach Kushner, Zachary Nosbisch, Zander Raymond