ALEXI KUKULJEVIC: The I Lesson, Part I, 2012
March 14 – April 8, 2012
ALEXI KUKULJEVIC:
The I Lesson, Part I, 2012
Opening Reception for First Among Equals, April 4, 6-8pm
Marginal Utility Gallery is proud to present The I Lesson, Part I, 2012, an exhibition of new work by ALEXI KUKULJEVIC as a part of FIRST AMONG EQUALS exhibition at the ICA in Philadelphia.
Consciousness, this cuckoo's egg of nature,
– Oswald Wiener, extracted from The Bio-Adapter, edited and translated by Ludwig Fischer.
Here is a commonplace definition of the cuckoo: `kü-(,)kü,`kü-
1. a largely grayish-brown European bird (Cuculus canorus) that is a parasite
given to laying its eggs in the nests of other birds which hatch them
and rear the offspring
2. the call of the cuckoo
3. a silly or slightly crack-brained person
And a few suggested synonyms:
birk, booby, charlie, fool, ding-a-ling, dingbat, dingdong, dipstick,
doofus, featherhead, git, goose, half-wit, jack-ass, lunatic, mooncalf,
nincompoop, ninny, ninnyhammer, nit, nitwit, nut, nutcase, simp,
simpleton, turkey, yo-yo.
If consciousness is a cuckoo's egg, it cannot be approached directly, since it thrives on its
misrecognition. Consciousness is not its own proprietor or progenitor and its transparency
a ruse. This is one of the lessons of Oswald Wiener's The Bio-Adapter: an attempt, as he
put it, to fathom the very end of the phenomenal world and human history as such. “I am
my own experience.” Such “primitive certainties” must be questioned. It is not easy to
separate the I from the proprietary claims of consciousness. One finds oneself saying things
like, “spirit is bone,” treating consciousness as one of nature's greatest cons, a vast, elaborate
and ingenious hoax, the most original imposture, and art itself as one of its fermenting fruits.
This is the starting point of the exhibition, which takes its bearings from an aphorism of
Julien Torma: “Everyday they recite their I-lesson.” The I is a habit, perhaps grammatical,
uneasily unlearned. Sincere efforts to breaks its grip have failed. Suicide, too terminal.
Schizophrenia, too romantic. Insincerity bears more fruit. Cf. Fernando Pessoa, Marcel
Broodthaers. One has to learn that on occasion it is important to bury one's head in the
ground to feel the pressure of the earth on one's skull. If art is medicinal, it is a species of
trepanation. And if spirit is bone, then aesthetic ideas are little else than the fine dust thrown
from the trepaner's drill.
The Institute of Contemporary Art is located on the University of Pennsylvania campus at 118 South 36th Street (at Sansom), Philadelphia, PA 19104-3289.