Passing Through the Threshold

Currently residing in Dowd, Daren Kendall’s sculptural work offers space for abstraction and connection

For many works of art, the decision for a viewer to engage is made in a split second. There’s always a powerful, sensory feeling that precedes the whirl of interpretation and analysis that accompanies any great work. Walking through the double doors of Dowd, this sense comes in full effect.

The first-floor gallery of Dowd now hosts a striking new installation from artist Daren Kendall. Threshold is a series of different sculptures that coalesce and compound to create an atmosphere and feeling of passage.

The length of the entire gallery is filled with small “stations'' of sculpture, each made from different materials and taking on different forms. A long scroll showcasing research for the project and previous iterations of the exhibit itself lines each wall behind the sculptures. 

Before coming to Dowd, Threshold’s first iteration was housed in the Fred Jones Jr. Museum of Art in Norman, OK. As each gallery poses different physical constraints, Kendall must reinvent Threshold as it moves. This is both a unique spatial challenge and an integral aspect of the piece. 

“It's a brand new work, essentially, because it's a brand new space,” he said. “If I'm going to keep the creative process alive, which I really love doing, then I'm going to enter the space and this work is going to take a different form.” 

Kendall also spoke to the difficulty of conceptually repositioning an exhibition for a new gallery, which, on a base level, is an issue that many artists face.

“There's a lot of moments of not knowing and just being okay with not knowing,” the artist said. “Just trusting that it'll reveal itself when it needs to.”

The installation is meticulously constructed from a variety of materials. Seven intertwining three-legged steel gates function as the focal point of the exhibit, creating passageways standing at different angles and perspectives.

Standing concretely in the center of the room, the passageways are accompanied by several other forms throughout the space. Complex, abstract sculptures of plaster and felt lay on each side of the central gates and stretch up onto the walls. Triangular wood slabs are clustered together, each holding a dulcimer wire (similar to a guitar or piano string) held taut between brass rods. 

These inventive applications are not meant to be static. Kendall describes Threshold as a “site-responsive” piece. In its first installment, Kendall invited dancers to help actuate the work’s emphasis on movement with an interpretive performance throughout the exhibition set to live musical improvisation on the monochord-esque instruments. 

Threshold as it now exists at Dowd will have a similar culminating performance in partnership with the Department of Theater & Dance and the Department of Music.

Central to Kendall’s aim of his work being site-responsive is the individual experience that each viewer receives. Many of the themes and symbols of Threshold were inspired by Dante’s Divine Comedy–in particular, what the artist describes as “the ultimate passage” in Dante’s epics from purgatory to paradise.

“You know, maybe this was a kind of purgatory, where you have to find the poetry, you have to find meaning, you have to find a way in which you can make your way through this space,” said Kendall.

It's this emphasis on poetry and introspection that makes Threshold so compelling and enduring. While the work will come to life in its forthcoming reception, there is an immense potential for self-discovery in the individual interpretation and experience of Threshold.

“As a viewer, it's more of a mental tool,” said Kendall. “You have to do all the work intellectually.”

Artists have varying thoughts when it comes to sharing the intent behind a piece of art. In some cases, it can help to spur deeper conversation and consideration–but taken too far, it can limit and restrict individual interpretation.

Kendall seems to strike a perfect balance in this arena, offering just enough structure for viewers to dig in deeply to the more abstract themes in his work, but not too much as to prescribe a certain meaning or experience.

Kendall himself noticed the tendency for a work’s meaning to change once it's formally released.

“I like how when you're making a project or a work, you can set out with one intention, and then it's going to completely get a life of its own,” the artist said.

Kendall’s deliberate choices in creating a work that brings viewers into a communal immersion are emphasized by the connection audiences feel when experiencing Threshold.

“The work created a space for our perspectives, our language, to have an exchange and maybe see eye to eye,” the artist said. “That's the intent of the work. Because anyone that's participating in it is also participating in that intention, which is coming together.”

 Threshold is open now for viewing in the Edward M. Dowd Art and Art History Gallery from M-F, 9am-4pm, until March 16, 2023. The performance and reception take place March 15 from 5-7pm.