Press Release - "I Surrender" by Kyle Lypka and Tyler Cross
Kyle Lypka & Tyler Cross
”Climb All Over Me”
Cast aluminum
6 x 8 x 4 inches
2020
pt. 2:
I Surrender
Kyle Lypka and Tyler Cross
Opening - September 12, 2020
Showing Through: Friday, October 2, 2020
Schedule a private viewing
info@part2gallery.com
Words by gin hart.
Some words have surprising origins. Surrender isn’t one of them. Its roots are Old French for “over” (sur-) and “give back, present, yield” (rendre). Blatant pieces of a blatant first principle. Large as these stones, a white flag waving.
I see the boys surrender and I’m like.... wow.
Natural magnetism. On knees as a kind of true north. The compass falls into the clay, and they dive in after it, cede without shame to the tickling mercy of continuous opening.
The boys peel back/into the layers of entangled embodiment to excavate a dyad body, which begs improbable feats of translation. They imprint their will below the hard-packed ground of linear time.
Some units being passed back and forth for softening and shaping:
Ideas; sketches; clay; spit; effort; the possibility of function → manifold possibility beyond function.
Begging your pardon but the veil of is/is not gains radical pentrabilty. Like in a superhero movie when an interdimensional portal opens and the data of all that-is keeps scrambling and re/spawning before your very eyes.
Some other notes I jotted: Chewing gum. Phagocytois. Fruity pebbles. Jaunty cock. Flecked mutual traces. Mark-making becoming. Burbling and unruly vessel. Fuck brings the light.
Emergent and languageless mysteries (feelings???) form and harden in the literal kiln, plus the particular heat of consensus reality. Tyler speaks of home. Kyle speaks of existence beyond space and time. I see it. .
This body isn’t somber. Here’s sculpture as metamorphic laughter: the miracle of plurality that makes love; the miracle of love’s ability to take mere mortals to meet their ancients.
Let’s not overcredit an olden day. If you feel a certain joy, upon viewing an Attic painted vase -- nude-penised musculatures entangled in what could be melee but could be sex -- it’s good to also note that homosexual sex was encouraged among ancient Greek soldiers because it boosted their morale and made them better fighters. In this house, things lose their spark of romantic dignity when they serve matrices of repression.
So, “I Surrender” has ancience at seed, yet actively rejects the warlike. The boys have peeled off from the scene, walked away hand in hand. Morale is for worthier and more pleasurable things: learning to collaborate, expanding that .
Eros at work reifies love. But the world is urgent. And lately it’s like… to what extent can art be an effector? As much as love and art cut sacred shapes in us, we must simultaneously surrender to the needs of this urgent world.
Twinned (twined) thought process:
1) Art, like love, is nourishing and deeply human.
2) Art, like love, doesn’t make us “good” or “right”.
. Surrender begets surrender. Yes.
Kyle Lypka & Tyler Cross
”Lodestone”
Ceramic, glaze, and cast aluminum
27 x 30 x 14.5 inches
2020
pt. 2 Gallery is pleased to present I Surrender a solo exhibition of new works by the artist duo Kyle Lypka and Tyler Cross. I surrender is the second collaborative solo exhibition by the pair at the gallery. The romantic partners continue their exploration of relationship and collaboration using glazed ceramic, cast aluminum, and mixed media sculptures.
More so than in previous collaborations, Lypka and Cross’ new work includes overt references to the human form. Most often, these forms are limited to hands, feet and legs, like the missing pieces of so many marble sculptures from antiquity resurfaced. In many occasions, such as the ceramic and aluminum piece Lodestone, two pairs of legs meld together in surreal fashion. While these bodies stop below the knee, the assumption of humanity is enough for the mind to fill in the blanks. These structures of support portray the tenderness of Lypka and Cross’ partnership - one ends where the other begins.
I Surrender expands on their exploration of the ceramic vessel, specifically the vase as an art object. While we may not see these containers as aparent human forms, they have the capacity to be such. Material experimentation has also been paramount to the couples work including a deep curiosity into the hyper-glazed finishes of their sculptures. The resulting surfaces subvert the viewer’s expectation of ceramics, many pieces have dry cracked appearances while others appear like glossy melted wax.
Alongside the many three dimensional works are a series of framed drawings from Cross' 9" x 12" gridded notebooks, which is where the majority of their work is first conceived. These small scale drawings show us a picture of life at the artists studio, a ranch in Pope Valley, CA.
Central to I surrender is a series of over one hundred small stained porcelain sculptures they call GRAILS. These quickly crafted and possibly functional miniature sculptures were created specifically to be accessible to anyone interested in owning an original sculpture.