In the warm breeze of Southern California’s endless summer, the 20th Century dream of life in the early evening after work: a large backyard covered in concrete and grass, a hammock or a lawn chair, cold beer, and a blazing grill. Ground meat sizzling above a glowing bed of charcoal soaked in lighter fluid. Underneath the avocado tree. Or the oak tree. Or the whatever tree. Putting the last 8-10 hours of your day out of your mind and enjoying your “free” time. A nuclear family fantasy repeated across hundreds of millions of suburban and semi-suburban homes and half a century of North American lives.
Pattern recognition is the primordial ooze from out of which living consciousness and intelligence crawled into the minds of animals. The ability to recognize repetitive relationships and recurring phenomena. The habits of food, the faces of your loved ones, and the sounds of human language. From automobile factory assembly line and the discount drug store cash register today to the taxi cab’s driver seat and patent lawyer’s office tomorrow: unconscious software is slowly and not-so- slowly aping the abilities of the living mind.
Reading without eyes. Recognizing without consciousness. The outsourcing of understanding. You’re Fired!
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Josh Kline (b. 1979, Philadelphia, PA, lives and works in New York) first solo museum exhibition, Freedom, opened in August at Modern Art Oxford, UK. In 2015 Kline’s work was included in the New Museum’s Triennial exhibition, Surround Audience, curated by Lauren Cornell and Ryan Trecartin; and the first exhibition at the new Whitney Museum, America is Hard to See. His art has been exhibited internationally, including in exhibitions at MoMA PS1, White Columns and on The High Line; among others in New York; Kunsthalle Fridericianum, Kassel; Schirn Kunstahalle, Frankfurt; ICA Philadelphia; Night Gallery, Los Angeles; Pilar Corrias, London; and Castillo/Corrales, Paris. As a curator, Kline has organized exhibitions at venues including MoMA PS1, Andrea Rosen Gallery, Gresham’s Ghost, 179 Canal, and Canada Gallery in New York. His work has been written about in publications including The New York Times, The Guardian, The Wall Street Journal, Frieze, Artforum, Mousse, and The New Yorker, among many others. He is represented by 47 Canal, New York.