The Bakery of Blok and the Three Forms of Unit (arrangement 1)
1st Organism, C-print
The Bakery of Blok and the Three Forms of Unit (arrangement 2)
2nd Organism, C-print
detail
The Bakery of Blok and the Three Forms of Unit (arrangement 3)
3rd Organism, C-print
detail
The Recipe of Bread, silkscreen
Installation images
(the following is an excerpt from the press release published by Miguel Abreu Gallery, NYC for the exhibition of this work)
Each of the repeated fifteen sculptural items arranged atop various cubes in the show is the result of a linguistic
translation of text into form. “In researching bread production, Taylor states, I came upon instructions and lists
for a necessary series of implements needed to make bread. Illustrations showing the appropriate items were
routinely absent. As a programmatic working rule, I did not seek out visual references for each tool. Instead, I set
about producing sculptural translations of each item as I interpreted it. The knife, spoon, scraper, tray, weights,
scale, and containers represent what I have versioned as a depiction of the written item. Each item records my use
of a constructed language, a fashioning of material into form.”
It can also be said that form here is the result of a self-reproducing character in a suggested plot where pieces of
dough, for instance, re-animate into living beings. As in earlier works, such as his 2007 video Put Your Eye in Your
Mouth: A Conversational Documentary Recording Martin Kippenberger's Metro-Net Station in Dawson City, Yukon,
Taylor appropriates popular media formats. The Bakery of Blok and the Three Forms of Unit may be seen as an audience
testing pilot mechanism, like those used for proposed television series, including a partial set, some short clips
along with promotional posters. By repurposing familiar narrative modes, Taylor's ensemble mimics the larger
processes of history involving memory and forgetfulness. These works are playful, yet embedded with traces of
their making accrued across several media.
Operating as a kind of sequel or elaboration upon a previous production, The Bakery of Blok and the Three Forms of
Unit follows The Bakery of Blok exhibition held earlier in Toronto at Jessica Bradley Art + Projects.