Anthony Hawley: Fault Diagnosis & Birdless

Salina Art Center, Salina, KS June 20-August 26, 2018

During the Summer of 2018, the Salina Art Center presented two projects by Anthony Hawley: “Fault Diagnosis” and “Birdless.” For the Salina version of Fault Diagnosis, Hawley and the Art Center staff erected a billboard in the city park. For three days, the artist and park-goers attempted to piece back together pages from the repair manual of the 1985 Nissan Pulsar at the heart of the project. Reconstructing the image like puzzle pieces, visitors wheat-pasted small chunks to the billboard in an effort to make sense of the diagrams. What resulted was not the original, but a hybrid re-configuration full of imaginative errors and efforts. The billboard then traveled to the Art Center’s main building along with drawings, audio by Tony Oursler, a custom-made wallpaper, and other material from the project. At the Salina Art Center Warehouse, a performance from the larger five-night iteration of Fault Diagnosis took place. In this, the character of the “mechanic” (played by violinist Rebecca Fischer) performs an operation of sorts on the car.

“Birdless,” a new project, consists of a three channel video installation and medium format polaroids.