READY MADE...NO, READY-MIX
Builders Ready Mix, Seejon Czaplicki, Mike Nesbit, Saumil Upadhyay, Taiyo Watanabe, Akiko Yamashita and Amber Yuheng Zhu, 2025
Los Angeles, CA
"In the 1990s the connection between Kelly’s Painting and its source was revised yet again, this time in Duchampian terms. The claim was made that Kelly’s Window represents not merely a natural impression, but a radical act of mind and strategy akin to Duchamp’s subversion of authorship, cutting out the idea of composing or inventing and replacing it with acts of discovery and appropriation as a means of making art. (Varnedoe 71)
"In a work of 1913-1914 called Three Standard Stoppages, Duchamp dropped three pieces of string from a given height to produce rulers that could be used for the creation of new works of art. His was a witty, hands-off, elegant parody of the idea of science. Serra in the same way, with his repeated casting and throwing not of strings but of pots full of hot lead, is involved in a kind of brutal and ironic parody of production, in which the overtones of futility, of pointless overworking, of beating your head against the wall, of dogged frustration to no particular end, are written into the idea of labor that it represents. (Varnedoe 173-174)"
- Kirk Varnedoe. Pictures of Nothing: Abstract Art Since Pollock. Princeton University Press, 2003, p. 71 & pp. 173-174.
an Andy Gump or a Duchampian Alter
a conventional norm of fluff, ornament, and surface
give it a taste of its own backed up plumbing
Time for some slurry to clear out the pipes.
a reversal towards primitivism
Don’t throw away the computer but disconnect it from its bed side port
Test its durability, let it ride on the back of a Mixer
Is that the smell of a concrete facility, nope that’s the aroma of the dump next door
Are you living?
A rebellious act of cutting drywall, perhaps
Knowing what’s in your cement mix, even better
I’ll give you a hint, don’t forget about LISA
Lime, Iron Oxide, Silica, and Alumina
Hell, what type of slump is it?
If it’s low and running at midnight, you’re making money while you sleep
Put the computer back to work,
Lunch time is over
Find the efficiencies, remove the deficiencies
give us the errors and the mistakes
Pure gold
Concrete the new Marble
Michelangelo wished he had a Ready-Mix Plant
Time to Terror, Time to Cut, Time to Crumble
Form Work is our Friend
Do it enough and we got something
Let it rip Sera, hot lava on the floor
hot lava in the corner, hot lava on the ceiling
Ready-Mix
Builders Ready Mix, Seejon Czaplicki, Mike Nesbit, Saumil Upadhyay, Taiyo Watanabe, Akiko Yamashita and Amber Yuheng Zhu, 2025
Los Angeles, CA
"In the 1990s the connection between Kelly’s Painting and its source was revised yet again, this time in Duchampian terms. The claim was made that Kelly’s Window represents not merely a natural impression, but a radical act of mind and strategy akin to Duchamp’s subversion of authorship, cutting out the idea of composing or inventing and replacing it with acts of discovery and appropriation as a means of making art. (Varnedoe 71)
"In a work of 1913-1914 called Three Standard Stoppages, Duchamp dropped three pieces of string from a given height to produce rulers that could be used for the creation of new works of art. His was a witty, hands-off, elegant parody of the idea of science. Serra in the same way, with his repeated casting and throwing not of strings but of pots full of hot lead, is involved in a kind of brutal and ironic parody of production, in which the overtones of futility, of pointless overworking, of beating your head against the wall, of dogged frustration to no particular end, are written into the idea of labor that it represents. (Varnedoe 173-174)"
- Kirk Varnedoe. Pictures of Nothing: Abstract Art Since Pollock. Princeton University Press, 2003, p. 71 & pp. 173-174.
an Andy Gump or a Duchampian Alter
a conventional norm of fluff, ornament, and surface
give it a taste of its own backed up plumbing
Time for some slurry to clear out the pipes.
a reversal towards primitivism
Don’t throw away the computer but disconnect it from its bed side port
Test its durability, let it ride on the back of a Mixer
Is that the smell of a concrete facility, nope that’s the aroma of the dump next door
Are you living?
A rebellious act of cutting drywall, perhaps
Knowing what’s in your cement mix, even better
I’ll give you a hint, don’t forget about LISA
Lime, Iron Oxide, Silica, and Alumina
Hell, what type of slump is it?
If it’s low and running at midnight, you’re making money while you sleep
Put the computer back to work,
Lunch time is over
Find the efficiencies, remove the deficiencies
give us the errors and the mistakes
Pure gold
Concrete the new Marble
Michelangelo wished he had a Ready-Mix Plant
Time to Terror, Time to Cut, Time to Crumble
Form Work is our Friend
Do it enough and we got something
Let it rip Sera, hot lava on the floor
hot lava in the corner, hot lava on the ceiling
Ready-Mix
Photos Courtesy of Mike Nesbit
Video Courtesy of Mike Nesbit
Photos Courtesy of Taiyo Watanabe