Artworks

Complementing Chester Arnold’s solo exhibition Complications (2020), the gallery’s Media Room presented Kal Spelletich’s installation sculpture, Strawberry Creek Harp (2019), which was commissioned for the artist’s 2019 mid-career survey exhibition at St. Mary’s College Museum of Art, Kal Spelletich: Significance Machines and Purposeful Robots. The sculpture responds to William Keith’s painting Strawberry Creek (ca. 1890s), which is held in the museum’s collection and was on loan to Catharine Clark Gallery during Spelletich’s presentation at the gallery. Spelletich explains, “I create experiences that explore the human desire for transcendence because ultimately humanity will prevail over technology.” In conceptualizing the piece, Spelletich visited Berkeley’s Strawberry Creek and positioned an electronic harp made from repurposed materials in the creek bed. The harp tracked the water’s motion via a detached robotic device. The electrical harp generated notes that responded to the creek’s variable speed and velocity, inviting a deeper conversation about relationships between nature and transcendence, ideas that are central to American art history and humanism. In conjunction with the artist’s presentation, St. Mary’s College Museum of Art acquired Spelletich’s Clasping Hands (In Supplicatio Praying Hands) (2014) for its permanent collection.