READING: Harry Dodge, My Meteorite (or, Without the Random There Can Be No New Thing)

Sunday, September 30, 2:00pm

READING: Harry Dodge, My Meteorite (or, Without the Random There Can Be No New Thing) | FOLLOWED BY A CLOSING RECEPTION

Dodge will read for 30 minutes, followed by a short Q and A, and a closing reception.

To celebrate the closing of Harry Dodge: Works of Love, JOAN presents a reading by Harry Dodge from his forthcoming book-in-progress MY METEORITE (or, Without the Random There Can Be No New Thing), an odd, expansive, and radiant work of nonfiction loosely structured around a series of formative coincidences in Dodge’s life—one related to sculpture-making!—many of which have to do with his birth family who he discovered in 2003, and the notion of a parallel life, the place where “what might have been” collides with “what was, is, or could be.” The titular meteorite is key. Dodge bought his meteorite—part of a larger family of iron fragments known as the Campo del Cielo meteorites—on eBay in 2016, and its presence reinforces the idea, for Dodge (a deep materialist), that the universe possesses ineffable power to shape our actions in ways we cannot fully know.

Exploring the nature of consciousness in science and pop culture [as in movies such as Her (2013) and Blade Runner (1982) etc.], and the increasing role of artificial intelligence (AI) in our daily lives, this book is interested in the question of what it takes for us to love something, or deem something’s existence valuable, be it a robot or a stranger introduced as “family,” or a person whose memory, abilities, and quality of life are being diminished by dementia (the artist’s father). The book reckons with the roiling, ongoing questions of what constitutes a bond (social, chemical, or otherwise), the conditions for love, and the difficulties of ascertaining (not to mention fulfilling) love’s duties (be they social, filial, artistic).

Harry Dodge holds an MFA from Milton Avery School of the Arts at Bard College and is permanent faculty of the School of Art at California Institute of the Arts, Program in Art. Recent solo exhibitions of Dodge’s work include Mysterious Fires (2017) at Grand Army Collective, Brooklyn; The Inner Reality of Ultra-Intelligent Life (2016) at Pasadena’s Armory Center for the Arts; The Cybernetic Fold (2015) at Wallspace, NY; and Meaty Beaty Big and Bouncy (2013) at The Aldrich Contemporary Art Museum, Connecticut. Recent group exhibitions include the New Museum’s 40th anniversary exhibition Trigger: Gender as a Tool and a Weapon (2018); Selections from the Permanent Collection (2017) at The Museum of Contemporary Art, Los Angeles (MOCA); Living Apart Together: Selections from the Collection (2017) at the Hammer Museum, Los Angeles; and the Hammer Museum’s 2014 Biennial, Made in L.A.. In 2017 Dodge was awarded a Guggenheim Foundation fellowship.

Image: November 1833 Leonid meteor shower, image credit unknown