Suspending the role of gender and violence on the biggest knitting needles you've ever seen
by Anna Shapiro
Wednesday, Sept 6, 2006:
I walked in to the Anderson Auditorium at the School of the Museum of Fine Arts for the first of their Fall 2006 lectures, which also served as the kick-off of a tour extraordinaire for our very own backwoods down-home artist Dave Cole. To my delight, the first image projected on the big screen was The Knitting Machine: two huge excavators with two aluminum utility poles attached with a MacGyver contraption, supporting a huge loosely knit felt object resembling the American flag. This is not an unfamiliar sight to me. I have seen many of these ridiculously large knit sculptures since I stumbled upon Cole's pink fiberglass teddy bear in the Decordova Museum's annual a few years ago, and have become a groupie ever since.
The retro style of the artist and artwork evokes the naïve decade of the '50s. A self-declared conservative in the art world, there's an ethos of modernist naïveté mixed with cult mythology in his approach to his work.
Although a bit didactic, the work itself is not expressive. Cole is comfortable with the one-liner nature of the work. There is a strong dynamic between materials, form and content. While Cole does not perceive himself entwined in the web of gender politics that the work implies, he would do well to examine the critical theories of third wave feminism to better wrangle the inevitable questions as to whether he is being subversive in his appropriation of gender or subversively reinforcing gender definitions.
Cole argues that the knitting is process—not performance. I say bullshit.
In the middle of the lecture we saw a movie produced by the folks over at Mass MoCA. It's a mechanical ballet: The knitting machine penetrates the loop of felt, like a bullet through the flesh of the flag, a violence softened by patriotism in the bucolic landscape of North Adams. In all the work I have seen of Cole's there is an implicit violence in the work-violence to the landscape, to the female form, and to the viewer-while also connoting violence to the Native American, the soldier and the teddy bear. He perceives violence as essential to the human condition and his work may be a means to examine masculinity in relationship to the violence of human nature.
This mid-lecture movie presents The Knitting Machine as a durational performance in the central lot of the adapted factory complex over the course of a few days. While Cole argues that the knitting is process-not performance-I say bullshit. Uniforms serve as a costume. All the players wear tan Dickies and hard hats with the KM logo on the front and player names on the back. The process becomes performance, defined by its documentation and the gathering of spectators watching this sporting event: knitting a grossly oversized piece of Americana on the eve of Independence Day.
Process, process, process … but unlike the original conceptual artists that were trying to escape the commodification of art, Cole has mastered the art of product and packaging. Cole is a slave to the industry of the studio. His mechanical and material inclinations are applied to his art-a factory churning it out. The mantra is product, product, product-something Adam Smith would be proud of.
In response to questions about how he gets access to John Deere excavators, Smithsonian archives, or even antique industrial machinery, the charismatic Cole is known for simply saying, "I know a guy." In truth, Cole relies on a network of connections. His studio hums with the efforts of talented artists: Justin Coleman (his primary studio assistant), noted Providence poster artist Jean Cozzens, and countless other interns, volunteers and friends who have taken interest in his collaborative projects.
Cole claims inspiration from Providence, and rightly so. Industrial, gritty, tough, and macho, Cole fits right in. The Knitting Machine hits a mark relevant to the recent boom in developments in Providence, a sign of both destruction and promise of the American dream.
