Work — KCJ Szwedzinski

False Profit/ Prophet

“To think is to go beyond. The best thing about religion is that it creates heretics.” -Ernst Bloch

In a scene from the Simpsons an apocalyptic event takes place. A church and a bar are next door to each other and the people in the church run outside into the neighboring bar and the people in the bar run into the church. This humorous moment in a cartoon encapsulates how we seek solace in times of turmoil, and is also the image I return to for my new body of work titled “False Profit/Prophet.”

While in residence at Mini Mart City Park, I will be fabricating the installation and lighting for a group of works that together make up “False Profit/ Prophet.” This series draws inspiration from both the sign industry and traditional stained-glass windows to investigate the intersection of desire, fear and belief.

Though seemingly disparate and anachronistic, neon signs and stained-glass windows share commonalities; drawing the viewer in through color and light. Stained-glass historically served the purpose of portraying biblical narratives to a largely illiterate mass. Until the printing press was invented in 1439, copies of the Bible were reserved for religious officials. Sometimes referred to as the “poor man’s Bible,” these stained-glass church windows served as a guide for people’s belief and education and as a means of authority for the church.

In secular and late stage Capitalist fashion, neon signage serves an ominously similar purpose; directing people to bars, clubs, wedding chapels, casinos, and places to spend their money. The body of work will operate on multiple levels; superficially, creating colorful eye candy to draw in viewers through the optical qualities of light, colored acrylic and electricity. On a deeper level, the work is connecting past to present and considering the way systemic hierarchies of power exploit people’s most basic desires and fears.

“What do you pay homage to? What do you reject? What do you spend your time worshiping (your phone, money, material goods)? What barriers do you draw between yourself and the sacred? Perhaps there is room on your altar for something new, something surprising. Offer it to the heavens.” -Kim Krans

False Profit/ Prophet: Large Thurible Still Life

Blown and flame worked glass, 18" x 36" x 24", 2022

False Profit/ Prophet: Mini Thurible Still Life

blown glass, 4" x 6" x 4", 2022

Her Empire Was Stasis I- IV

Blown glass, wood, upholstery cord, 48" x 4" x 4", 2022

Rose Window: Gold

Laser cut acrylic, 54" x 54" x 3", 2022

Fasle Profit/ Prophet Installation View at Mini Mart City Park in Seattle, WA

(Rad)iance

Steel, neon, 8' x 8' x 3", 2022

Rose Window: Mirror

Laser cut acrylic, 54" x 54", 2022

Rose Window: Warm

Laser cut acrylic, 54" x 54" x 3", 2022

Rose Window: Cool

Laser cut acrylic, 54" x 54" x 3", 2022

Self Love + Loathing

Neon, wood, 35" x 16" x 5", 2022

(Be)longing

Neon, wood, 31" x 17" x 6", 2022

This is a Hot and Dangerous Mess

Neon, LED rope light, 14" x 10" x 13", 2022

Conversations About Fragmentation

This series is an exercise in human agency; one that suggests parallels between an ancient superstition about mirrors and deeply held personal narratives created by each of us. Personal narratives can create responses in us similar to those provoked by superstitions. Rooted in the murky waters of childhood memory, we often create narratives about ourselves which turn into beliefs that ultimately affect our actions. The act of breaking and mending a mirror serves the dual function of a ritualistic exertion of control over a world that is perceived as capricious while simultaneously acting as a reminder that shifting long held narratives through a willed human action can have an effect on the future. We are not broken. We can heal. We can mend. The fragmented and divided self can ultimately be viewed as whole and complete. We decide to enact agency and change the story rather than relying on a prefabricated narrative.

Photo credit: Mark Fainstein

Split

mirror, copper foil, solder, 12” x 12”, 2021

Dropped

mirror, copper foil, solder, 12” x 36”, 2021

Rectilinear

mirror, copper foil, solder, 14” x 48”, 2021

Hammered

mirror, copper foil, solder, 24” x 36”, 2021

Something Old, Something New, Something Borrowed, Something Blue

This old adage is nowadays a fun tradition to gift something to a new bride before they walk down the aisle. The origins are more superstitious in nature and follow a long tradition of the damaging myth of the pure virgin bride. The rhyme came about in Victorian era England. Most of the ingredients in the rhyme are meant to ward off the Evil Eye, which was a curse that could be passed through a malicious glare that could make the bride infertile. Image credit: Ian Lewis

mirror, copper foil, solder, neon tubing, transformer, 36” x 36” x 2”, 2021

Aboard the Healing Machine

Aboard the Healing Machine, performed at Chulitna Research Institute on Lake Clark, Chulitna, Alaska, 2021

An absurdist take on the death of the Ego in which Kelsey Belle performs a dramatic reading of my Curriculum Vitae to the Alaskan bush aboard the Healing Machine (built by Jonas Sebura and Alex Gartlemann).

This performance aims to bring levity to the seriousness of the notion of accomplishment. Grad school exacerbated unhealthy and perfectionist tendencies; connecting self worth to extrinsic accomplishments. This performance is an attempt to let go of the Ego, similar to the way Kelsey’s voice fades off across the lake the further from shore we drift. Equally, the absurd notion of reading accomplishments achieved on a human scale to a landscape that moves on a vastly different geological timeframe obliterates the idea of self importance.

Sacharin(e) Shrines

We live in a culture that preaches from an early age that consumption will bring a kind of deliverance. Commercials and advertisements portray a simulacrum of reality in which life is sweet, simple, and fulfilled once the object on display is possessed. Belief is the acceptance that a statement is true or that something exists. Our beliefs are indoctrinated in us from an early age and shape the way we move through the world and the decisions we make. This series exists at the intersection of belief and consumption, with implications towards extant systemic power structures.

Stained glass windows, aside from being an historically beautiful addition to churches, originally served the purpose of portraying biblical narratives to a largely illiterate mass. Until the printing press was invented in 1439, copies of the bible were reserved for religious officials. Sometimes referred to as “the poor man’s bible,” these windows served as a guide for people’s belief and education and as a means of authority for the church.

Saccharin(e) Shrines mimics the aesthetics of glass, in truth, this reinterpretation of leaded light remains highly subjective to its environment and will begin to distort as humidity levels rise. Whereas glass begins as a molten and kinetic material until it cools, sugar glass enacts a slow reverse mimicry. Once cooled, it becomes subject to the entropic forces of its surroundings.

This work relies on material deception to subvert our expectations and question those things we are regularly surrounded by and accept without a second thought. Saccharin(e) Shrines reveals to the critical observer its secrets.

Sacharin(e) Shrines I

Sugar and steel, 48” x 36”, 2019

Sacharin(e) Shrines II

Sugar, water color and steel, 48” x 36”

Sacharin(e) Shrines III

Watercolor, sugar, and steel, 48” x 36”, 2019

Notes From an Extended Performance

This series was completed while under lockdown for 70 days from March 23- May 31st of 2020. In an attempt to process what was happening and the constant influx of news, I performed a series of action drawings that functioned equally as meditation and an outlet for cabin fever.

Decision Fatigue I, charcoal and graphite on Bristol, 40" x 118", 2020

I read an article that discussed virus-era decisions and how quickly we reach a state of fatigue weighing the consequences of every choice. Do I wash my hands again? Can I touch that? Should I check the mail? Does it stay on cardboard anyhow? Should I visit the grocery store? Etc ad infinitum...Working mostly as a glass artist/ printer/ sculptor, this method of working is entirely immediate and requires a choice of line placement every time I turn around. It’s decision fatigue on a theoretical scale with no risk, but a meditation on it none the less.

Decision Fatigue II, charcoal and graphite on Bristol, 40" x 120", 2020

Decision Fatigue I

Decision Fatigue on Wheels or 53 Days in Lockdown, conte crayon on Bristol, 40" x 190", 2020

Decision Fatigue on Wheels or 53 Days in Lockdown

Allostatic Load I, charcoal and graphite on Bristol, 40" x 135", 2020

I read an article about pandemic brain fog and a pervasive feeling of fatigue due to something called Allostatic load. Essentially it’s an accumulation of physiological and psychological stress that kicks the brain into overdrive as it works to protect us. The days seem to blur together and I feel like I haven’t accomplished much of the things I’ve set out to. This piece reflects that sentiment. The amount of time spent in relation to the visual evidence of the mark seems much like the way I feel at the end of the day. What do I have to show for all the time spent....

Allostatic Load II, charcoal and graphite on Bristol, 40" x 145", 2020

Peaks and Valleys, charcoal and graphite on Bristol, 40" x 118", 2020

This drawing confronts the physical fatigue that accompanies the mental fatigue experienced during the pandemic and a way to keep my body moving and active while in quarantine.

Trace

My work investigates the intersection of Jewish legacy and lived experience by questioning, imagining, and reinterpreting Jewish jurisprudence and traditions. I am interested in whatwe remember, but also how we remember and how information passes to successive generations.

When we undertake a critical examination of the beliefs and traditions indoctrinated in each of us, issues of distortion and perception arise. Every time a story is retold it takes on a new life, simultaneously preventing specific information from being lost to history while slowly transforming into something new. Information passed on from previous generations changes across time- words and stories become indoctrinated as the historical cannon. This work considers how an individual decides what to embody, embrace, or deny from their inherited legacies.

Trace focuses on Judaism’s unique attributes- a history of debate and argumentation as mechanisms for understanding and expounding on ambiguous passages/laws and the cross-cultural nature of Judaism’s manifestations across history and the globe. The practice of debate and interpretation in Judaism is called midrash. This work is visual exegesis that continues this long-standing practice and functions as a methodology for synthesizing seemingly disparate bodies of knowledge: historic Jewish tradition and my personal inherited legacies.

Instal view

Rocking Pairs

found chairs, pine wood, 8’ x 24” x 38”, 2018

The practice of Havruta in Judaism means to learn or study with another. This method of learning traditionally was used when studying the Torah and the Talmud. These chairs embody the spirit of Havruta as well as the spirit of midrash. Midrash is the ancient practice of debate, interpretation, and the back and forth nature of argument in Judaism.

How to Remember What We Forget, When We Forget That We Don't Remember

plaster, string, nails. 9' x 48" x 2",2019

This piece considers the importance of the 613 commandments within Judaism. It employs the generally recognized maxim of tying a string around one’s finger to remember something and applies it to the absurd task of trying to remember 613 things. As the commandments are examined, considerations of whether they are relative or absolute become difficult to discern. For instance, “Thou shall not commit murder” seems fairly straight forward, however, when the finer points such as what constitutes murder are considered, it can become a matter of ethical and philosophical debate. Is killing in wartime murder? What about killing a fetus to save the mother? The sheer number of commandments and nuances of each exemplify the difficulties of defining our religious and spiritual boundaries.

Havruta: Learning the Klezmer Step

ink on Stonehenge paper, 50" x 30', 2019

By leaving only an artifact from the actual experience of learning traditional Jewish dances, Havruta: Learning the Klezmer Step leaves a question to the viewer: who had this experience and what where they doing? It’s possible to glean repetition from the recorded movements but not certainty about sequencing. This piece asks questions regarding authority, specifically whether I am more Jewish by having learned these often-secular Jewish dances. By leaving only the remnant of the experience, the absence becomes the question. Whose identity is this?

Aleph Bet: Learn a Letter, Take a Letter

paint, sugar glass, chalk, 64" x 64", 2019

There is a Hebrew tradition when little boys begin their education, the teacher will place honey on the letters and the little boy is encouraged to lick the honey off the letters in order to learn to associate knowledge with sweetness.

Learn a Letter, Take a Letter solicits the viewers participation in learning the Hebrew alphabet. It then invites them to take sugar glass letters situated at the entrance to the gallery, thereby democratizing a tradition that was once the demarcation of the entrance to a male only world of study and intellect.

Letters at the gallery entrance

Mutualism

family heirloom chair, Tractate Sotah, dimensions variable, 2019

Mutualism places a modified family heirloom chair in a dialogue with the Talmudic Tractate Sotah in order to consider their interdependence. One leg of the chair has been severed and the books act as a brace or support. The placement of the the books and the chair, directly and metaphorically, speaks to relatedness: the relationship between the artists matrilineal Jewish heritage and a history of androcentric texts, the relationship between the past and the present, and the way in which each generation relates to its inherited legacies. Physically, the books support a chair that has been rendered in need of external support which is reminiscent of the description within rabbinical literature of the way women come into the world needing to be reliant on the external support of their male counterpart .

The Impossibility of Historical Resonance II

glass, found object, wood, metal, dimensions variable, 2019

A particularly antiquated piece of literature is the Talmudic Tractate Sotah, or The Ordeal of Bitter Water. Sotah refers to a woman whose husband believes her guilty of adultery. Across multiple volumes, the tractate labors to outline what the husband and Rabbi are to do with this woman. A sotah is subjected to a ritualized trial by the Temple where she may be stripped and humiliated in front of a public audience.

The Impossibility of Historical Resonance II uses the transparent nature of glass to reference the layered and complicated nature of historical recollection and transmission as well as the difficulties of emotionally accessing history. The pages of a book from Tractate Sotah are recreated in glass and fused together, making it nearly impossible to read. The words quickly become visual noise and the layers obfuscate each other.

The Ordeal of The Bitter Water

The Impossibility of Historical Resonance II

glass, found object, wood, metal, dimensions variable, 2019

A particularly antiquated piece of literature is the Talmudic Tractate Sotah, or The Ordeal of Bitter Water. Sotah refers to a woman whose husband believes her guilty of adultery. Across multiple volumes, the tractate labors to outline what the husband and Rabbi are to do with this woman. A sotah is subjected to a ritualized trial by the Temple where she may be stripped and humiliated in front of a public audience.

The Impossibility of Historical Resonance II uses the transparent nature of glass to reference the layered and complicated nature of historical recollection and transmission as well as the difficulties of emotionally accessing history. The pages of a book from Tractate Sotah are recreated in glass and fused together, making it nearly impossible to read. The words quickly become visual noise and the layers obfuscate each other.

Ceremony of Objects

Secret Seder

wood, ceramic, glass, 51" x 48" x 34", 2017

The Seder Service is hidden on the underside of the dinner table commenting on the history of hiding religious and cultural traditions in times of persecution.

Secret Seder

wood, ceramic, glass, 51" x 48" x 34", 2017

Belief Divided

glass, polycarbonate, wood, 15" x 29" x 7.5", 2018

What we believe shapes us. The historical narratives that are passed from generation to generation are not immune to deviations from the original. Slight differences in language and cultural understanding can have an impact on the transmission and translation of the texts later on.

There is a strong history of debate and discussion being essential for the interpretation of many Jewish laws and practices. It's interesting to consider how the combination of this history of debate and the retelling of these narratives across time have impacted both the secular and sacred practices of Judaism.

Belief Divided

glass, polycarbonate, wood, 15" x 29" x 7.5", 2018

Both These and These are the Words of the Living God

blown glass, gold wire, 38" x 26", 2018

A Tallit is a traditional Jewish prayer shawl. I made a glass Tallit constructed of murrini connected by gold wire. Our faith and beliefs can weigh on us, as a physical presence, affecting out actions. This work attempts to materialize the weight of our stories.

Both These and These are the Words of the Living God

blown glass, gold wire, 38" x 26", 2018

Both These and These are the Words of the Living God

blown glass, gold wire, 38" x 26", 2018

Vessels of Song

By leaving only an artifact from the actual experience of learning traditional Jewish dances, these prints leaves a question to the viewer: who had this experience and what where they doing? It’s possible to glean repetition from the recorded movements but not certainty about sequencing. This piece asks questions regarding authority, specifically whether I am more Jewish by having learned these often-secular Jewish dances. By leaving only the remnant of the experience, the absence becomes the question. Whose identity is this?

Learning the Tcherkessia Step

ink on Stonehenge, 50" x 38", 2018

Learning the Klezmer Step

ink on Stonehenge, 50" x 38", 2018

Learning the Debka Step

ink on Stonehenge, 50" x 38", 2018

The Klezmer Step | Glass Study

enamel on glass, 22” x 22”, 2018

She Called Herself The Referee of Love

blown glass, wood, ink on Stonehenge paper, 17” x 150”, 2018

What is lost and what is gained in the transcribing of oral histories?What makes an object sacred? The story of my great great grandmother Bella Neiderman was told to me by my grandmother orally and recorded, then typed for posterity and finally, meticulously written onto a scroll. The narrative is overlaid on a print of me learning the Klezmer Step and is revealed and concealed by the ink. The title refers to what my grandmother called herself as she was the median point in a tumultuous family life.

Hidden Histories

This series grapples with the challenges of language to describe, to remember, to stand up for, to exclaim, to lament, to defend, to accuse.

The pieces in this body of work engage directly with four texts; “A Year in Treblinka” by Jankiel Wiernik, “The Journal of Helene Berr” by Helene Berr, testimony from Franz Suchomel trial from the Treblinka Trials, and the United Nations Declaration of Human Rights.

Jankiel Wiernik was a Polish Jewish Holocaust survivor who wrote about his time in the Treblinka extermination camp. He was a master carpenter who ended up building much of the infrastructure of the camp. Over the course of two years he was able to move somewhat freely across the camp and was part of one of only a handful of successful resistance attempts.

Helene Berr was a young Jewish woman in occupied Paris who was the daughter of a diplomat, thus the family felt certain they’d be safe from being sent away. Her journal documents in real time the family’s experience.

Franz Suchomel was a guard at Treblinka and was sentenced to only six years in jail. Charges against him included the murder of at least 700,000 Jews.

The United Nations Declaration of Human Rights was a document drafted in direct response to the atrocities of WWII and was envisioned to be a common standard of achievements for all peoples and all nations.

Hidden Histories I

sheet glass, wood, steel, 54" x 20" x 8", 2017

A portion of A Year in Treblinka can be read from one side and a portion of testimony from the Nuremberg Trials can be read from the other. They quickly become visual noise as the layers obfuscate each other referencing the layered and complicated nature of historical recollection.

Hidden Histories I (detail)

sheet glass, wood, steel, 54" x 20" x 8", 2017

A portion of A Year in Treblinka can be read from one side and a portion of testimony from the Nuremberg Trials can be read from the other. They quickly become visual noise as the layers obfuscate each other referencing the layered and complicated nature of historical recollection.

An Excerpt From A Year in Treblinka | The Impossibility of Historical Resonance

screen printed and fused sheet glass, Arches Cover, davey board, 7" X 5", 2017

The pages of this book are fused together, making it nearly impossible to read the story. However, It is possible to see the different pages through the layered sheets of glass. This book presents the idea of the difficulties of emotionally accessing history.

An Excerpt From A Year in Treblinka | The Impossibility of Historical Resonance

screen printed and fused sheet glass, Arches Cover, davey board, 7" X 5", 2017

An Absence That Suggests a Significant Presence

laser etched Stonehenge paper, duck canvas, davey board, 11" X 17", 2017

In Holocaust writing and memory, absence and presence are recurring themes, as are speech and silence. These seemingly contradictory attributes will circle around each other presenting different methods for trying to understand, remember, and lament.

An Absence That Suggests a Significant Presence

laser etched Stonehenge paper, duck canvas, davey board, 11" X 17", 2017

An Excerpt From A Year in Treblinka in Sand

black sand, 40” x 40”, 2017

Every time a story is retold it takes on a new life, simultaneously preventing that information from being lost to history while slowly transforming into something new altogether. Each time this story is written in sand that specific iteration will be affected by its environment, representing the way stories changes across time with each retelling.

An Excerpt From A Year in Treblinka in Sand

black sand, 40” x 40”, 2017

Revelations and Consolations

blown and sheet glass, stone granules, 10" X 6", 2017

An excerpt from the narrative of Holocaust survivor, Jankiel Wiernik, "A Year in Treblinka" juxtaposed with testimony from the Nuremberg Trials. While one narrative is revealed, the other becomes concealed.

Contemporary Artifact: United Nations Declaration of Human Rights (preserved for posterity)

glass, paper, ink, wax, wood, cork, 40" X 15", 2017

The United Nations Declaration of Human Rights was made in direct response to the atrocities of WWII and should operate as a living document, providing countries with a clear vision of liberties. Instead, in many places the contents of this document are regularly violated. In this piece, each article is preserved as though a relic from the past, instead of acting as a piece of relevant and contemporary legislation.

Contemporary Artifact: United Nations Declaration of Human Rights (preserved for posterity)

glass, paper, ink, wax, wood, cork, 40" X 15", 2017

Juif | Juden | Jew

Neon, 36" X 30", 2017

Juif means Jewish in French. It is written that during WWII all of the Jews living in Paris voluntarily signed Jewish registries and had Juif stamped on their ID cards. This enabled the Germans to lawfully select Jews for transportation to concentration camps and execution. This piece illustrates the strong notion that many Parisians had that their national identity came before their religious identity.

Coincidentia Oppositorum (Coincidence of Opposites)

Rabbi Nahman of Bratislav burnt his life’s achievement at the end of his life in 1810. He did it to resist the varying measures aimed at petrifying Jewish tradition. The Talmudic text is treated not as an original and sacrosanct monument but as a changing script which departs from its origin as it experiences ongoing interpretations. He did it as a gesture of moving beyond fixed interpretive tradition. In relation to anti-Semitism- the historic act of burning books and knowledge in the name of a higher power, whether godly or political as an act of control and destruction, becomes an act of complicity where the page and knowledge persist. These sculptural books incorporate burning to create a sort of narrative in which the page persists against the destruction of the material.